Frozen Wight
by thebandragoness
Summary: With the eternal winter over, her powers under control, and the gates reopened, Elsa was ready for a long and peaceful reign over Arendelle. What she wasn't ready for was a rebellion, scalding hot chocolate, dirty rumors, illicit paintings, the philosophical ramifications of sentient snowmen, a drought, a lovestruck bodyguard, and a man-eating monster.
1. Why Did It Thaw?

_Clang._

The anchor rang out as it struck the ship's hull, almost like it was eager to hit dry land after days stuck in the seabed.

"Alright, men!" the captain bellowed. "Looks like we'll be arriving at port on schedule after all."

The crew cheered. They'd been getting more than a little sick of bobbing in the waves, but turning around hadn't really been an option unless they wanted to starve to death in the middle of the ocean, and sailing into the harbor had been deemed a less than stellar idea on account of the thick coating of ice surrounding the country's shore for miles. But the crew had awoken this morning to find that the ice had vanished as mysteriously as it'd arrived.

This called for rum.

"_Hic..._"

The short, scrawny cabin boy stumbled his way through the ship's nether regions. He'd missed out on the crew's celebrations above deck – The rum supply was running dangerously low, so it'd been necessary for him to slip away as quickly as possible. Now if he could just find the stairs and sneak back into the crowd, he'd have pulled off the perfect crime. The only problem was there were about three or four different sets of identical staircases before him. It was quite the logic puzzle.

The boy was just about to march headfirst into a wall when a sharp, raspy voice hit his ears from behind:

"_Why... did... __it__... thaw?_"

It would've sent a shiver down the spine of any sober person.

"Oh!" The boy spun around, grinning blissfully. "Yuh havunt herrrrrd? The cap'n said the eterny-al... eternaley-al whatchamacallit-"

"_The e__ternal winter._"

"Yeah, that. The eternaley-al wintermacallit... The cap'n said it wuz just freak weather, but we all knew that was baloney." The boy gave a sudden lurch, but he impressively managed to stay on his feet. "It wuz a curse. Cuz Albin caught Alf with hish sister, and now the whole voyage ish cursed. Ish true-"

"_Why. Did. It. Thaw?_"

"Well..." The boy swung around – an act that nearly sent him off his feet again. "I dunno, but... I wash up early in the mornin' at the crow's nest, and... and I shaw allllll the ice by the harbor, like, drift up into the air... and... and-" He threw out his hands. "-it made a giant snowflake! And then it exploded. It... It wash beautiful." The boy burst into tears.

"_Ah_," said the voice. "_So she's not dead. She thawed it herself._"

He wiped his eyes. "Wha-?"

Finally, the boy's eyes landed on the voice's owner. Standing before him was a tattered gray cloak, and within the cloak were a pair of black and shriveled hands, and within the hands were a pair of blades unlike anything the boy had ever seen. They were formed from crystal – one violet and the other a deep blue. In the darkness below deck, they almost glowed.

Huh. The boy must've had more rum than he'd thought.

"_Why?_"

Before he could even process what was happening, the boy found the blades closing around his neck like an oversized pair of shears. "W-Wha-?"

"_Everything was perfect_," hissed the stranger. "_Why would she do that?_"

The cabin boy didn't answer the question. In fact, he'd never be answering any questions ever again.

* * *

A ship bobbed up and down in Arendelle's wondrously non-frozen harbor. This ship, however, did not contain any captain or crew. What it did contain was a queen, a princess, an ice-cutter, a reindeer, and a talking snowman standing beneath his brand new personal flurry. The ship had also contained a handsome prince a minute ago, but somehow he'd ended up thrashing around in the water below.

From up on deck, Anna met Hans's eyes and gave him a pleasant wave.

"So..." said the ice-cutter, "I take it the wedding's off?"

"_Oh _yes," said Anna smugly. "I've got a strict policy against marrying murderous sociopaths."

"Anna..." Elsa took a tentative step towards her. Every bone in her body was telling her to run away, telling her that by standing here, Elsa was putting the lives of everyone in Arendelle in danger, and yet... Elsa was at peace. For once, she couldn't feel the ice screaming for release. "Prince Hans was just trying to protect people from me. He... He thought you were dead." It was a strange thing to say aloud. A minute ago, Elsa had thought she was dead, too.

"Yeah, he _did_ think I was dead." Anna leaned over the ship's railing to scowl at Hans. "He was kinda counting on it, actually."

Elsa looked lost. "What are you saying?"

Anna jabbed an accusing finger down at the water. "He locked me in the library to freeze to death!"

"_What?_" The jaws of every passenger on the boat dropped. Even the reindeer's.

"No way." The ice-cutter nearly dived in after Hans. "Someone fish him out. _I _want to punch him!"

Elsa's eyes met Anna's. "You're positive he tried to kill you?"

"He was _bragging_ about it."

"But- But why would he do that?"

"Because his brain is noodles!" Before Elsa had time to flinch away, Anna hugged her. "I'm _so_ sorry, Elsa. I had no idea I was marrying a maniac. You were right. You were right about everything."

"Did..." Elsa was nearly paralyzed. There were about a million things going through her head at once. "Did he hurt you?"

"Only emotionally." Anna gave a feeble smile.

"Sheesh," spoke up the ice-cutter, "when I said you shouldn't marry a man you just met, I was thinking he'd turn the toilet paper the wrong way."

Elsa's eyes fell on him. This was the same boy who'd been with Anna and Olaf at the Ice Palace. He was covered in a layer of dirt and sweat, and despite having a bit of a baby face, he looked big enough to snap Anna in half like a twig.

Elsa tensed in spite of herself. "Who are you?"

"Oh, right, introductions!" Anna immediately grabbed the boy and shoved him in Elsa's face. "This is Kristoff... Kristoff, uh..."

"Bjorgman," the boy said flatly.

"Right, I knew that. Kristoff Bjorgman."

"Uh, hi there, Your Majesty." Kristoff bowed sheepishly. "Nice to meet you. I mean, we kinda already met back on the mountain, but, uh..." His voice trailed off.

There was an awkward silence... which Anna happily filled. "Kristoff's an ice-harvester! I met him at a sauna and he helped me climb the North Mountain and there were wolves and he was raised by trolls and he saved my life!"

"Wait." Elsa gave a start. "Trolls?"

Now Kristoff looked like he wouldn't mind joining Hans in the water just to escape. "Yeah, it's kind of a long story."

"But-"

"And this is Sven!" Elsa was cut off by a reindeer suddenly overtaking her field of vision. Olaf bounced around by its hooves, vibrating with joy. "He's the reindeer and Kristoff's the human," he said, "but if that's too hard to remember, you can just call them both 'Sven.'"

"I'll, err, keep that in mind." With only a moment's hesitation, Elsa pressed a palm against the animal's snout. She exhaled in relief when the it didn't turn into a hairy ice cube.

"Oh, look at that," said Kristoff. "He likes you."

Elsa sighed. She'd have to add "troll-boy" to million things going through her head. "Alright, come on," she said. "We can't stay on this boat all day."

"Wait a minute," Olaf frowned. "How are we gonna get back to-?"

With a swish of Elsa's arms, an intricate bridge of ice sprung up between the boat and the shore.

"Oh," said Olaf.

"Wow." Anna let out an impressed whistle. "I've never seen your magic up close before."

Elsa couldn't help but cringe at this. Her eyes flitted to Anna's hair, which, for once, didn't have a trace of white in it. She'd... She'd tell Anna later. "I had a lot of practice on the mountain."

"So it's under control now?" said Kristoff.

Elsa closed her eyes. The image of a girl jumping in front of a sword flashed through her mind. "Yes. Complete control."

"Awesome. Now come on!" Anna grabbed her hand and led her onto the bridge. They were quickly followed by a procession of an ice-cutter, reindeer, and snowman.

"Careful," Elsa called out to the group. "It's slick." Of course, by the time she said that, Olaf and Sven were already skidding.

Elsa's stomach was bubbling, and she wasn't sure if it was from excitement or dread. On one hand, her powers were finally under control. She felt like she was back on the North Mountain, releasing it all for the first time in years... but by now, a crowd had formed at the far end of the ice-bridge, and the closer Elsa drew to it, the slower her footsteps grew.

This didn't go unnoticed by Anna. "Elsa? What's wrong?"

Elsa shut her eyes again. "After I froze your heart, some... some men stormed the Ice Palace. I was dragged into the castle dungeon in chains."

"_What?_ They can't do that to the queen!" For a second, shock crossed Anna's face, but then she seemed to remember something. "Oh, wait, I, uh..." She glanced away, blushing. "I might have left Hans in charge while I was gone. That'd explain it."

"You're lucky he didn't kill you in the dungeon," added Kristoff.

Elsa reluctantly opened her eyes back. "He probably would have if I hadn't escaped." Speaking of which, she could add "fix broken dungeon wall" to the million things in her head. "What if everyone sides with him? I _did_ nearly freeze them all to death."

Anna put a hand on her shoulder. "All you did was make it snow for a few days. Look, Kai and Gerda are waiting for us at the head of the crowd." She pointed them out to Elsa. "Those two are practically family. They're not gonna let anyone burn you at the stake."

Still, Elsa didn't allow herself to smile until they'd reached the far end of the bridge, where Gerda immediately threw her arms around her. "Your Majesty! Thank God you're alright! What happened?"

"I..." Elsa overlooked the mob of palace staff and foreign dignitaries. Some did look happy, but most looked more anxious. "I have my magic under control." The crowd breathed a collective sigh of relief.

After that, Elsa was inundated with congratulations and tears of joy and maids fussing over her and guards insisting that chaining their queen up in the dungeon had been all Hans's idea and _they'd_ wanted to try calming her down with a soothing herbal tea, but had anyone listened to them? Nooo...

Even once the staff had been reduced, only a select few servants had been in the loop about Elsa's secret. The rest had all assumed she had some sort of terminal illness. But now, every single person in this enormous crowd knew the truth. It was surreal.

Elsa was shaken from her thoughts by the sounds of screaming. She jolted, impulsively unfreezing her ice-bridge. What was happening? Were her powers out of control?

"_It's alive!_" Several people pointed with trembling hands towards the mound of misshapen snow waddling towards them.

Elsa almost laughed in relief. "Oh, of course. Everyone, this is Olaf." She picked the snowman up by the waist and hoisted him into the air.

"Hi!" Olaf gave the crowd a cheerful wave of his stick arm. "I'm Olaf, and I like warm hugs!"

"I made him with my magic," Elsa told the crowd. "He's harmless."

For the most part, people eased up at this. However, one gray-haired man still looked troubled. The design of his crisp, clean emerald suit identified him as the royal chief of staff.

"I take it this is another one of your magic tricks, Your Majesty?" he said. "You can move your snow like a puppet?"

Elsa smiled and shook her head. "He's not a puppet, Anders. Olaf is really alive."

Anders's eyebrows twitched. "Alive? You mean to say this snowman can... can talk and think?"

"Hmm..." Olaf looked pensive. "I _think_ I can think."

"So... your magic can create intelligent life?"

"I wouldn't go _that_ far," deadpanned Kristoff.

Anders brought a palm to his forehead. "I need to go lie down..." With that, he slinked off towards the castle.

Elsa returned Olaf to the cobblestone so he could mingle with the crowd. About half of the million things going through her head concerned her ability to bring snowmen to life, but frankly, Elsa was _not_ in the mood to worry about that right now.

"Elsa, Elsa! Look!" Suddenly, Anna grabbed Elsa's arm again and pointed to something cold and slimy crawling out of the harbor.

"Anna!" As soon as he was done coughing up water, Hans flashed her a dashing smile. "I'm so glad you're alive!"

"Can't say the same about you!" Anna raised a fist.

"Wait, wait!" Hans threw out his hands, wincing. "On behalf of the Southern Isles, you have my most heartfelt apologies for my misunderstanding."

Anna gaped at him. "Misunderstanding? _Misunderstanding?_"

"I thought you'd frozen to death." Hans pulled himself to his full stature. "Don't you remember? I kissed you like you'd asked, but nothing happened." His eyes filled with such grief, Elsa almost believed him for a second. "I sat with you as your body grew limp. Your pulse was so slow, I'd assumed you were gone... I'd had no idea you'd get a second wind. It's a miracle!" He ran forward to give Anna a hug-

_Crack._

-and was promptly sent flying back into the water.

"_The only miracle here is the fact that I haven't made your stupid face go concave, you heartbreaking son of a-_"

"Anna, wait-!" It was all Elsa could do to stop Anna from diving into the water to keep beating him up.

"Anna?" Hans pulled himself out of the harbor once again, sputtering. "I- I don't understand."

Anna turned to the crowd. "He locked me in a room to freeze to death!"

The crowd gasped in unison.

"I have no idea _what_ you're talking about," Hans said innocently.

"No idea?" Anna spun towards him, raising another fist. "You monologued your whole evil plan to me!"

"Anna, honey, by the time you found me, you were babbling incoherently." Hans held out his hands in a soothing gesture. "You must have imagined things. You were delirious-"

"_I'll show you delirious!_"

Hans ducked another blow. "Queen Elsa, please, your sister is confused!"

Anna turned to her. "Please tell me you don't buy any of this."

"Not a word," said Elsa tightly.

"I- I won't have my reputation sullied!" Hans's patience was wearing thin. "I demand a fair trial! I-"

"Excuse me, Your Highness?" Just then, a man stepped forward from the crowd. Elsa had had to memorize about a billion faces at the coronation, so she recognized this man as the French dignitary. "I have a question." He gave Hans a pointed look. "If Princess Anna was so delirious, how did you two say your marriage vows?"

Hans blanched. "I don't know what you mean."

The dignitary raised an eyebrow. "You told us you managed to say your marriage vows before she died in your arms, remember?"

Hans took a step backwards. "No I didn't."

The various dignitaries exchanged wry glances.

"Hey, hey, guys, let's not jump to conclusions." Olaf pushed his way through the crowd. "Maybe Hans is innocent."

"Yeah! See?" Hans scooted closer towards him. "Even your freaky snowman thing sides with me!"

"Innocent, but, like, really, really dopey," added Olaf. "I mean, when I found Anna, the fireplace wasn't even lit. What kind of idiot doesn't know that heat melts things?"

"_Don't__ insult my intelligence, you pathetic __sack__ of slush! If I'd wanted Anna warmed, I obviously would've lit a fire!_"

Every eye fell on Hans.

"I mean, err..." He cleared his throat. "The window must've been knocked open and the... the snowstorm blew the fire out. Yeah."

* * *

"He's being hauled back to the Southern Isles as we speak, Your Majesty."

"Excellent. Thank you, Kai. And I trust the message to the Duke of Weaseltown was delivered?"

"Of course, Your Majesty."

Considering Elsa's term had opened with her fleeing the palace in terror, she was wasting no more time in establishing her authority. Now that all the foreign dignitaries were finally on their way home, Elsa was seated in the throne room, while Anna hovered beside her. Being in her sister's presence was apparently enough to make Anna levitate from sheer delight.

"And there's more good news, ma'am." Kai retrieved another sheet of parchment. "The royal scouts' report just arrived. There have been absolutely no reported causalities from the blizzard."

The last few pounds of weight finally lifted off Elsa's shoulders. "Good, good. Is there anything else on the agenda?"

"You have a council meeting as soon as the rest of your advisors arrive."

Elsa had to keep from groaning. A council meeting? Ugh, she felt drowsy just thinking about it. Elsa had spent this morning escaping a dungeon and sprinting across the frozen harbor, and she'd spent this afternoon pacifying a busload of foreign dignitaries who'd been cooped up in the castle for days. What Elsa wanted more than anything else in the world right now was to go to her bedroom and let her head hit the pillow... but she had responsibilities, and there'd be no more running away from them.

"I can't believe that weasel-guy," huffed Anna. "He really sent his thugs to kill you?"

"Well, we don't have any proof of that," said Elsa. "But probably, yes."

Anna let out a snort. "What's wrong with him?"

"He's afraid of me." Elsa bowed her head. "And I can't say I blame him."

"But you're not dangerous anymore, right?" There was a disarming amount of confidence in Anna's voice.

"No." Somehow, Elsa found it creeping into hers, too. "I'm not"

"So... what now?"

"Nothing much. I've just got some 'queen stuff' to do." Elsa rose to her feet and made for the exit. Anna started to follow, but Elsa stopped her. "Oh, you don't have to come. It'll be boring."

"Elsa..." Anna laughed, then took Elsa's hand in hers. "For the last, like, thirteen years, I would _kill_ to be bored with you."

Elsa found her smile widening. "Alright, then. If you're sure."

Anna beamed back. "From now on, consider us joined at the hip."

* * *

Two hours later, Elsa was seated at the desk in her study, working her way through a pile of legal documents that scratched the ceiling. The only sound produced was the occasional drip of an inkwell and the rhythmic thump of Anna over in the corner, repeatedly banging her head against the wall.

"…I'm gonna go find Kristoff," Anna suddenly said, moving for the exit.

"And here I thought we were joined at the hip."

"Ha _ha_."

Elsa was left by her lonesome.

Somehow, digging through pile after pile of legal documents had caused Elsa to lose track of time, so she gave a start when Kai stuck his head through the door to say, "Your Majesty, you're late for the meeting."

"Oh! I almost forgot!" In her hurry, Elsa sprang out of her seat and sent papers flying. But to be honest, she was glad for the excuse to stop signing documents, seeing as there'd never been a recorded case in human history of anyone ever enjoying that.

"I hope you feel up to participating in the lawmaking, my queen," said Kai, kneeling down to collect the fallen pages. "I understand these past few days have been taxing on you. There's nothing wrong with leaving the running of the country to your advisors for a bit longer."

The royal advisors had been running Arendelle in Elsa's place until the coronation, acting as a regent of sorts. Nobody had been expecting Elsa to inherit the throne quite so soon – It'd taken three years for her to learn the rushed version of her duties and reach the point where she could stand in a room without painting the walls white.

"Of course I'm up to it," Elsa said somewhat guardedly.

"Yes, well, you may be of age now, but I worry many advisors still view you as the little girl who never left her bedroom."

Elsa winced. Kai might as well have punched her in the stomach.

"I mean no disrespect, of course!" he hurriedly added. "I simply mean that you ought to put thought into the first impression you give them."

"I see," said Elsa. Kai exited the study, leaving her alone for a moment. "First impressions, huh?"

* * *

Here's a secret: All politics is really just a bunch of old rich people who hate each other being locked in a room to argue about boring legal stuff. Arendelle's council chamber was essentially a large, empty space with gray stone walls and an equally drab carpet, and the majority of this space was occupied by a very big but otherwise plain brown table, where about a dozen white-haired old people sat and yelled at each other.

In fact, they were right in the middle of a really good spat when the oaken doors swung open and Queen Elsa glided into the chamber, her ice-cape billowing out behind her. All the screaming, mud-slinging, and bribery came to a halt all at once.

"Sorry I'm late," said Elsa tightly. "But that's alright. I see you've decided to start without me."

The advisors went deathly quiet. Eventually, the one at the front of the table gathered the courage to speak. This was the _de facto_ head of the advisors, so chosen because he was the youngest and most hot-blooded politician available, though he still had a sizable bald spot on his head.

"We meant no disrespect, my queen," he said delicately. Honestly, he was shocked to see the queen here – He'd been expecting her to return to spending all day locked in her room moping. But he refrained from saying this out loud, probably because he wasn't too keen on having his fingers freeze and fall off.

"Here, let me get you a-" Before he could finish, Elsa stomped her heel. An elaborate throne of ice immediately sprouted from the floor. Elsa seated herself wordlessly. "-chair." The advisor hesitated a moment before saying, "Yes. Well, prior to your arrival, we were discussing the welfare of the citizens in light of the recent… weather."

"Good," nodded Elsa. "We'll be sparing no expense compensating the people of Arendelle for what I put them through. And I expect aid will come to them much more quickly now that only _one_ person is in charge."

None of the advisors dared challenge the statement. It wasn't that they thought Elsa would be such a better ruler than them so much as practically anyone would be, seeing as in the years following the late king and queen's reign, the council had accomplished approximately zilch.

"One other thing," said Elsa. "Now that I can control my powers, I have every intention of using them to benefit Arendelle. It's about time my magic started making life _easier_ for people."

The council traded glances.

"But my queen," spoke up the head, "the citizens are already afraid of you. Aren't you worried these, err, blatant displays of your abilities-" He gestured towards the ice-throne. "-will make them think you're a sorceress?"

"I _am_ a sorceress," said Elsa. "And I'm never hiding who I am again. Now, if any of you have any ideas for how I can use my ice to help people, I'm open to suggestions."

At first there was silence. Then one of the advisors in the back raised a timid hand. "Well, err, wouldn't the obvious thing be to sell your own ice?"

Elsa shook her head. "That'd create a supply and demand problem." (Earlier that day, Kristoff had taken Elsa aside for a lecture on the economic instability of the ice-harvesters' lifestyle. Said lecture hadn't ended until Elsa had sworn on her crown to never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, _ever _put her ice on the market.)

"I- I heard you made that dress with magic," stammered another advisor. "Is it made of ice, or…?"

Elsa looked down at her own clothing. "I'm not too sure myself." She ran her fingers over it. "It's some sort of ice-fabric."

"Well, couldn't you mass-produce the cloth to sell?"

Elsa shook her head. "I think it would melt without constantly being near me. Nice try, though."

"What about the ice-harvesters' lake?" said another. "The one out by the fjords."

"What about it?"

"The royal scouts say it's been melting earlier than usual this year. With your eternal winter gone, soon it'll be too thin for the harvesters to work on. If they can't use the lake, it'll disrupt their routine and put them behind schedule."

"I see." Elsa pondered this for a moment. "I probably _could_ do something about that... Any other suggestions?"

Apparently, the council had gotten their creative juices flowing.

"How about irrigation?"

"Wait, I'm confused. If you make a bunch of snow, and then it all melts, wouldn't that cause flooding?"

"I've got a good one! Hear me out! You could turn the palace courtyard into an ice-skating rink! And- And then you could go around Arendelle and open a whole _chain_ of ice-skating rinks! Think about it! It'd be the awesomest-"

"_One at a time!_" Elsa's voice sent a wave of cold air crashing over the room. All conversation froze in its tracks.

The silence was once again broken by the head of council. "Well… what about your snowmen? Can't you bring them to life?"

"I _can_, but…" A faraway gaze overtook Elsa's eyes. "...I've never really done it on purpose. It's only happened twice. I was feeling powerful emotions, and they just… _appeared_. It was like giving birth."

The councilmen traded another round of glances. One of them muttered a word that sounded suspiciously like, "_Wome__n._"

* * *

"…and you're sure it's fine for me to be in the castle? Because your butler was giving me the stink eye."

"Who, Anders? Don't mind him. He's grumpy, but he means well. Usually."

Anna was currently giving Kristoff a tour of the palace. It felt crazy – She'd never brought a friend into the castle before. Heck, she'd never had a friend before, period.

"Hey, Kristoff?" Anna found herself fiddling with her pigtails. "Thanks for- for, y'know, running through that snowstorm to try and save me. I mean, it turned out I didn't actually need you, but... thanks."

"Uh, yeah, no problem." Kristoff fidgeted with his bangs. "And, uh, sorry your fiance tried to murder you. I know I wasn't exactly the biggest supporter of your marriage, but still, it must feel pretty awful."

"I'll be okay. It's just- just a lot to take in, that's all. I mean-" Anna exhaled loudly. "-_fwoof_, life's crazy, am I right?"

"Yeah. I mean, between trolls and wolves and talking snowmen and chicks with magical ice powers... yeah."

The two of spent the next couple minutes gazing into each other's eyes.

"It's getting late." Kristoff suddenly looked out the window at the setting sun. "I'd better head out."

"Oh, well, I guess I can go check on Elsa," said Anna. "But she's probably still sitting around signing papers, bored out of her-"

"_For the last time, I am __NOT__ making an army of snow-sold__i__ers to storm the gates of Weaseltown__!_"

Anna and Kristoff flinched as a door across the hall burst open. Out came Elsa, slamming it shut behind her. She was so furious, her breath was visible.

"Are you okay?" asked an alarmed Anna.

"My advisors are all _insane__!_" Elsa blasted out another round of frigid air that left Anna and Kristoff shivering. "If they had their way, I'd be using my powers to overthrow neighboring countries!"

"Wow, they're pretty ambitious," said Kristoff. Elsa gave him a look. "I mean, _how dare they?_ You wouldn't hurt a fly!"

"Well, they're only stupid advisors, anyways," said Anna. "You're the queen – You can do whatever you want."

Elsa nodded feebly. "I think I've had enough of being the queen for one day." She trudged off towards the stairs. "Goodnight."

"G'night!" Anna called after her. "Don't let the frostbite-" But Elsa was already out of earshot. Anna turned to Kristoff. "Does she seem okay to you?"

"Well, she didn't freeze your heart this time, so that's an improvement."

"Yeah... I guess so..."

After a moment's hesitation, Anna found herself following after Elsa.

* * *

It was just a stupid door. Doors can't be scary. They're _doors_.

Nevertheless, Anna found herself too terrified to knock. She hated this door, she realized. Hated the doorknob. Hated every inch of the wood. Hated the stupid painted blue snowflake design that in hindsight had been a _really big clue_ staring Anna in the face all these years.

Come on, now, she could do this. All she had to do was knock. Raise her fist, yes, that was it, then bring it to the wood and hit it with her knuckles... It was easy. She just had to pretend it was Hans's face.

_Knock, knock-knock, knock knock._

For about a minute, there was silence. It was the longest minute of Anna's life.

"Come in," said a voice from the other side.

_Wait_. Anna blinked in surprise. It wasn't locked? It was _never_ not locked. But sure enough, the instant she put her hand on the knob, the door opened right up.

This was like something out of a dream. As in, Anna had literally dreamed about this. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't breathe. She was walking into Elsa's bedroom. Anna wasn't sure if she was shivering from excitement or because it was ice cold in here. Probably both.

The bedroom looked just like Anna remembered it, only all the toys on the shelf had been replaced with books. Somehow, though, the bedroom seemed a whole heck of a lot smaller now. How on earth had Elsa spent so many years cooped up in here?

"Anna?" Elsa sat up out of the covers and rubbed sleep from her eyes. Her hair was down, and her ice-dress had apparently been morphed into an ice-nightgown.

"I... I..." Anna tried to speak, but the words wouldn't come. This was too much. She was in Elsa's bedroom. _She was in Elsa's bedroom_.

Elsa smiled at her. She seemed to understand Anna's dilemma. "I love you, Anna."

The door was open. This the most perfect moment of Anna's life. She was going to remember this moment forever, and nothing in the world could ruin it.

"Can I borrow some money?" Anna blurted out.

Elsa blinked in surprise. "W-What-?"

"I, uh..." It was moments like these Anna really wished she could rewind time. "I need money for a sled. I promised Kristoff I'd-"

She was cut off by the strangest sound she'd ever heard in her life – Elsa bursting out laughing. "Is _that_ why you wanted to come in here all these years?"

Anna found herself joining in. "Yeah, like, forget about building snowmen, do you have a twenty?"

It took a couple minutes for them to settle down.

"Really, though," said Elsa, wiping her eyes. "What do you need?"

"I promised Kristoff a sled if he helped me up the North Mountain and stuff."

"Ah, so _that's_ why he was being so helpful."

"What? _No_," Anna said defensively. "I wasn't bribing him. I just..." She looked at her feet, them muttered, "I just broke his old sled."

Elsa shook her head. "Why does that not surprise me?"

"Look, Kristoff's a great guy. When my heart froze, he saved my life."

Elsa folded her arms. "How did he do that?"

Anna took a deep breath. "Okay, I know you're not gonna believe this, but bear with me. Kristoff took me to some trolls. He was raised by them. I saw them with my own eyes."

Anna had expected Elsa to be skeptical, but instead she seemed oddly tense. "I believe you."

Anna blinked. "Really?"

Elsa nodded. "I can bring snowman to life – I'm ready to believe anything."

"Good point. Anyways, the trolls sang this really annoying song, and then an old one came out and said the only way to thaw my heart was with an act of true love, and then Kristoff ran me all the way here to save me. The point is, he's a good guy. In fact, he's, like, a hero. We need to pay him back."

"Alright, I'll-" Elsa yawned. "-I'll see what I can do."

"He needs a place to stay. I found him sleeping in an old abandoned barn in the woods."

Elsa looked thoughtful. "Maybe I can give him a job. He's an ice-harvester, right?"

"Yep. Hey, uh, speaking of ice..." Anna seated herself at the foot of Elsa's bed. "Elsa, this whole 'ice-magic' thing of yours, it's..." Her face tightened. "It's the reason I was shut out all those years, isn't it?"

Elsa slowly nodded. "I'm sorry, Anna. For everything. My powers are so dangerous-"

"_Were_ so dangerous."

"Right. Were." Elsa gave a faint smile. "They were so dangerous that being around me would've risked your life, and our parents would never have allowed that. But my powers are under control now. I'll never freeze your or- or anyone else's heart ever again, I promise."

The sisters leaned in for a hug.

"Where'd your magic come from, anyways?" asked Anna.

"I was born with it."

"So does sorcery run in the family, or...?"

Elsa shook her head. "We keep royal records spanning back centuries. If anyone else had magic, they hid it better than me. And Arendelle doesn't have a history of snowstorms in July, so..."

"Hmm..." Anna gave this some thought. "Well, you were born on the winter solstice, weren't you? Maybe the planets aligned or something?"

Elsa smirked. "I don't put much stock in astrology."

"I thought you were ready to believe anything?"

"What I _meant_ was I'm ready to believe anything that isn't stupid."

They shared another laugh.

But suddenly, Anna's face grew serious. "So if you're not dangerous anymore, the gates can stay open again, right?"

"Hmm..." Elsa feigned indecisiveness just to be coy. "I don't see why not."

"_Yes!_" Anna gave her the tightest hug yet. "You're the best sister ever!"

Elsa smiled again, but this time it didn't quite reach her eyes. "I just want you to be happy, Anna. You deserve it after what Hans put you through."

"Hey, don't worry about me." Anna showed off her pearly whites. "So long as your door stays open, I don't care _how_ many crazy people try to murder me."

* * *

"Have any of you seen the cabin boy?"

The crew gave their captain nothing but clueless shrugs.

"Ah, well, he's probably passed out in his quarters again." With that, the captain began marching his crew and their cargo onto the port. He took a nice, deep whiff of the summertime air. Somehow, the weather had gone from humid to freezing and then back to humid in the span of a few days. Weird.

"Cap'n, cap'n, look!" Suddenly, one of the crew members pointed towards the city streets.

"What is it?" His eyes followed the finger, but the captain saw nothing but moonlit cobblestone.

"I- I thought I saw somethin' scurry outta the ship..."

The captain yanked a bottle from his swaying hands. "That's enough rum for you, Alf."


	2. The Worst Chocolate

_Clang._

Dozens of picks struck the ice in harmony. Pause.

_Clang._

And again.

_Clang._

It made a nice rhythm. A hypnotic one, even. The kind of rhythm one could sing a song to.

_Clang._

It was also extremely boring. Now, using the tongs to yank the freshly cut cube out of the ice was the exciting part. And operating those pulleys was pretty fun, too. At least more fun than striking the ground endlessly to chip away at a frozen lake until there was something resembling a cube shape in the ground.

_Clang._

But this particular ice-cutter wasn't thinking that at all.

_Clang._

He was a big one, alright. Big shoulders, big muscles, big beard. But he was also standing several feet away from the rest of the ice-harvesters. They were off in their own groups, talking and joking amongst each other – anything to stave off the monotony. But not this one. He welcomed it. Frankly, he'd spent the last several hours perfecting the art of whacking the lake with a pickaxe while thinking about absolutely nothing.

_Clang._

Especially not thinking about _her_.

_Cla- Clang._

His clang had become dissonant from the rest. Stop thinking, he ordered himself.

_Clang._

That was better.

_Clang._

The point is, this man really, _really_ wasn't in the mood to speak to anyone today. Or tomorrow. Or ever again.

"Hey, Adrian, you okay?" called out the orphan.

_Clang._

"Uh, hello? I'm talking to you."

Reluctantly, Adrian the ice-cutter turned his gaze in the direction of the voice. A distinct head of unmanly blond hair was moving towards him.

_Clang._

"What a day, huh?" came his attempt at conversation. "It's sweltering out here. Don't know how much longer this ice is gonna last, huh?" He gave a mischievous grin, as if something about the ice amused him.

Adrian stayed silent.

_Clang._

"Uh… Is everything alright?" asked the orphan. Sure, his name was Kristoff, but to Adrian he would always be "the orphan." The little tyke who hung around all the bigger ice harvesters, completely awed by their work.

Definitely not the kind of person Adrian would assign any level of authority to, least of all the status of "ultimate supreme ice-cutter" or whatever position had been invented for him now that he was chummy with the royal sisters. Little orphan kid stomping around the ice like he owned it… Adrian had been harvesting ice long before Kristoff was even an idle thought in his absent parents' minds, and you didn't see Adrian getting any recognition.

"_Adrian!_ Hello?"

"Don't concern yourself with me, boy," Adrian finally replied, moving his eyes away from the kid. "I know what I'm doing."

_Clang._

"Oh, really?" Smugness crept into Kristoff's voice. "Is that why you've walked so close to the thin part of the ice? Y'know, the part that's about to break any minute now and send you to the bottom of the lake?"

Adrian's icepick froze mid-swing. "That's odd." He turned to inspect the surface of the ice by his feet, which was indeed beginning to crack and thaw. "It's too early for the ice to melt. Much too early."

"Yeah, well, the weather around here hasn't exactly been normal lately, has it?"

Adrian scowled and marched towards solid land. "Looks like we're done here."

Several other ice-cutters seemed to agree and were beginning to follow suit before Kristoff called out, "Hey, slow down, everyone! Let's not give up on this year's ice crop just yet! We've got one more trick up our sleeve…" There was that mischievous grin again. "Oh, look, here it comes now."

"No." Adrian's scowl deepened.

It was a pale, white palace horse, and atop it was an even paler woman. The queen was draped in a thin dress of some glittering, sky-blue material that showed off a leg. Any other person would've been crazy to go out on the ice dressed like that, even if it was getting warmer. But if the queen shivered, hugged herself, or did any of the other things normal people do when they expose their skin to the freezing cold, Adrian failed to notice.

The queen dismounted, then spoke briefly with Kristoff before giving him a small nod. He'd moved too far away from the gathering crowd of harvesters to hear what was being said, but Adrian had a feeling he could guess what was about to happen.

The queen walked towards the center of the lake, past the crowd of ice-cutters, past even the regions Adrian had judged too thin to walk on even when, going by Kristoff's smart remark, he had generously overestimated the ice's thickness.

Despite his distaste for her, Adrian had to admit Arendelle's newly crowned queen had every bit of authoritative grace the Official Ice Master lacked. With a single, dramatic stomp of her heel, the girl sent a shockwave of frost in all directions, leaving the lake as solid as if it were the dead of winter – or the way it had been yesterday, technically.

"Hey, look at that!" said Kristoff. "I'd say ice-harvesting season's just been extended."

The ice-cutters met the queen with a mixture of applause, cheers, and even catcalls – the culprits safe in the anonymity of the crowd. A nervous smile spread itself over her face.

Look at her. Proud of her curse. Adrian found himself scowling. His eyes stayed fixed on Queen Elsa until she'd mounted her horse and vanished over the horizon.

"Ummm, Adrian?" Kristoff cautiously approached him from behind. "Everything alright? You've seemed a little, err, touchy lately."

Adrian's reply was to spit in the queen's direction and hurl his icepick to the ground.

_Clang._

"As long as _she's_ here, _I_ won't be."

"Adrian, hold up! What are you doing?" Kristoff called after him. "You said so yourself, you've been at this longer than me! You can't quit! Ice is your life!"

But Adrian ignored the boy. He stormed off towards the city, disappearing into a nearby thicket of trees.

"Ooooookay," said Kristoff. "That just happened."

* * *

When Anna had said she didn't skate, Elsa had assumed it was because she was scared.

_Thud_. "Oof!"

But as it turned out, Anna wasn't afraid of anything.

"No, no, I got this! Just lemme-" _Thud_.

She was just cringe-inducingly terrible at it.

"I'm okay!"

Of course, watching her little sister's head smack into the skating rink made Elsa's heart pump faster. But frankly, if _bruising_ Anna was the worst her ice was threatening to do, Elsa didn't really have much to worry about.

Elsa had long since grown tired of skating, and now she was content to merely stand at the edge of the courtyard and watch Anna narrowly avoid high-speed collisions with snowmen and reindeer. Elsa shut her eyes. She was having a little trouble convincing herself that when she re-opened them, this would all still be here.

Every instinct in Elsa's body was telling her this was impossible. There was an entire crowd of villagers skating on the rink and marveling at the nearby frozen fountain, every last one of them taking in Elsa's magic like it was some quaint party trick. If you dialed the clock back a week, Elsa would have assured them there was nothing cute about her powers, and she would've proceeded to point out there was nothing but some small scraps of cloth over her hands stopping said powers from extinguishing the lives of every last one of them in a heartbeat.

But that had been before Elsa was aware her powers could build castles, turn courtyards into skating rinks, and bring snowmen to life. Elsa opened her eyes and glanced at a nearby glide-and-pivoting Olaf. Elsa could bring snowmen to life. _Elsa could bring snowmen to life._ She'd made that discovery days ago, and thinking about it still made her dizzy.

Not as dizzy as her sister looked, though. Anna somehow managed to skate her way to the edge of the rink, where Elsa readily caught her before her head could sustain further damage.

"Are you sure you're okay?" asked a bemused Elsa.

"Yeah, never been better." Anna transformed the act of catching into a hug. Elsa didn't think the two of them had even gone ten minutes without hugging since the winter thawed. Just watching Anna put her arms around her without shivering was enough to make Elsa's stomach swell with joy.

Anna finally removed her ice-skates and stood by her sister on the solid, non-ice-covered cobblestone. "_Phew_, looks like the skating's winding down." She gestured to the throngs of citizens making their way back out the gates, probably to avoid the summer sun. There may have been ice everywhere, but that didn't make it any less scorching out. "Hmm... What else was on our itinerary?"

She counted on her fingers. "We shipped Hans off to get spanked by his brothers, re-opened the gates, replaced Kristoff's sled..."

"Oh, that reminds me," spoke up Elsa. "I refroze one of the ice harvesters' lakes. It's so much hotter out than usual, they're going to start melting fast. I thought I could help."

Anna nodded her approval. "Good idea. I mean, we don't really need ice harvesters anymore seeing as you're a walking lifetime supply, but, y'know, might as well give Kristoff something to do, right? Just so he can keep telling himself he's special." She smirked to herself. "You should've seen him, Elsa. He really believed me about an official Ice Master and Deliverer being a thing. It was so cute!" She started to laugh... until she caught sight of Elsa's face. "He's standing right behind me, isn't he?"

Elsa gave a slow nod.

"I was just kidding!" Anna spun around to find a big, blonde mountain man staring her down. "What I _meant_ was, uh, an official Ice Master isn't a thing _yet_, uh... because Elsa hasn't signed the paperwork."

"You don't think I'm special?" smirked Kristoff, giving his accompanying reindeer a scratch behind the ears.

"What? No, you're plenty special! I mean, you do goofy voices for your reindeer. Can't get much more special than that."

"Thanks, Anna, you always know just how to boost my self-esteem."

Elsa sighed and shook her head, letting herself hang back from the two of them. If she was being honest with herself, Elsa wasn't entirely sure why this man was still around. Yes, his help had probably saved Anna's life when she'd been running around in the freezing cold without the slightest clue what she was doing, but the palace had already rewarded him handsomely for that. In fact, maybe it was Elsa's imagination, but she could swear this not-unattractive young man was spending the vast majority of his time exclusively with her sister...

Well, Elsa supposed dealing with strangers was just a consequence of opening the gates. In fact, speak of the devil, here came one now.

Elsa spun her head to find a man making a wide arc around the ice-covered regions of the courtyard. He was tall and heavyset, and he would've looked younger if not for his gray hair. Despite the blazing summer heat, the man was draped in thick furs, not unlike Kristoff's ice harvesting outfit. Judging by his wild hair and overall smell, Elsa would venture to say he hadn't changed his clothes in days. The stranger came to a halt before her. From his snarling face, Elsa had a feeling he wasn't about to treat his monarch with complete reverence.

"Adrian?" Kristoff turned towards him, frowning. "What's up?"

The man ignored him, his glare fixed squarely on Elsa. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Hey, pal, use your indoor voice!" Anna immediately placed herself between them. "Well, actually we're outdoors, but use it anyways! That's the queen you're talking t-" But the her retort was cut off by a pale hand on her shoulder.

"I can handle this, Anna," Elsa said softly. Though she was visibly restraining herself, Anna managed to keep quiet.

"What seems to be the problem?" Elsa asked.

"The problem?" said Adrian. "You froze the whole country, and now you expect it to all be forgiven? You actually have the _nerve_ to use your sorcery for- for _decoration_ and _trivial amusement__?_"

"Yes. I do." Elsa's face hardened. "What I use my magic for isn't your decision."

Adrian let loose an incredulous laugh. "And whose decision is it? Yours? You dropped in unannounced and tampered with our lake! What right do you have? Who's holding you accountable if you make things worse? "

Elsa's eyes narrowed. "I can control my powers now-"

"Can you?" cut in Adrian. "How do you know your ice isn't poison to the lake? And when it melts, how will you stop it from flooding with all the added water? Or are you going to leave it frozen forever so we always have plenty to harvest? Why not go ahead and hand your own ice directly to citizens, cut out the middle man? _Completely_ throw out the way we've been doing it the last forty years instead of _mostly__-?_"

"That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard!" Anna's restraint had been in vain. "Elsa's ice is _not_ poisonous!"

"Is that a fact?" spat Adrian.

There was a tense silence.

"Y'know what you need? A warm hug!"

"_Agh__!_"

Whatever Adrian had been expecting by coming over here to complain, it hadn't been for an animate snowman to suddenly wrap its stick-arms around him. Adrian did what anyone would do when confronted with a pile of sentient snow – He screamed and punted it as hard as he could. Olaf went sailing through the air, but fortunately the sisters and Kristoff had the reflexes to catch all three segments before they could collide with the cold, hard ground.

"So that's a 'no' on the hug, then?" said Olaf's disembodied head.

"What is that thing?" Adrian stared at Olaf like he was some vicious beast.

"'That thing' is my snowman." Elsa knelt down to reattach Olaf's segments so she could cradle him in her arms like an oversized baby. "My magic brought him to life." Elsa gave Adrian a stiff glare. "I'm not concealing my powers anymore. If that's a problem for you, the gates are right over there." She pointed behind him.

"I was just leaving." Adrian snorted, then trudged off.

Elsa pursed her lips, watching him until he was through the gates and out of sight. For a minute, the sisters, boy, snowman, and reindeer all stood in stone cold silence.

"Well, _someone's_ got an ice-pick up their butt," said Anna. "Can't we have him arrested for disrespecting the monarchy or something?"

"No, no, just… just leave him alone." Elsa's head drooped. "I don't think he was entirely wrong."

"Hey, don't go around thinking like that!" Anna spun towards her. "You did nothing but help the ice harvesters. That guy's just a stuck-up old fart."

Elsa stayed silent.

"Besides," Anna added, "I didn't go through that big huge adventure just to see you go right back to being all mopey every time some jerk's mean to you."

Elsa gave a small smile. "You're right, Anna. I just hope there's not more where he came from, that's all."

"I swear none of the other harvesters are like that," said Kristoff. "Me and Sven usually go it alone, but the older guys are cool. I practically learned everything I know from them."

"Any idea why this one had such a low opinion of me?" Elsa asked, folding her arms.

"Beats me," shrugged Kristoff. "Actually, he used to be one of the most level-headed guys on the team, but ever since the eternal winter, he's been kind of an- Well, you saw..."

"He sounded prejudiced against magic," said Elsa.

"Probably not hugged enough as a child," said Anna.

"And I bet his mom cut his sandwiches into rectangles instead of triangles!" spoke up Olaf. "That can really mess up a guy…"

"Oh, Olaf, I almost forgot about you." Elsa gently deposited him onto the cobblestone. "Are you alright now, little guy? Why don't you find something to do without Anna and me for a while?"

"You bet!" Olaf gave a confident salute and then bounced away out the gates, his personal flurry cloud following in place above his head.

"Why, where are you two going?" asked Kristoff.

"This Adrian person was at least right about one thing," said Elsa. "I shouldn't have used my powers unannounced like that. I couldn't have known how people would react, and I ended up upsetting somebody. I'm not repeating that mistake." She turned for the gates. "Let's get something else crossed off that itinerary, Anna. I haven't explored the town yet."

That was a depressing thought, Elsa realized. She hadn't set foot in her own hometown for _thirteen years_.

"Yeah, sure," said Anna. "What did you want to do, exactly?"

"I want to see how many citizens agree with Adrian."

"Well, everyone's gonna be on their best behavior if they see the royal sisters running around with a legion of guards," Anna frowned. "Hmm... Ooh! Ooh!" That spark in her eyes meant she'd had one of her infamous ideas. "Let's disguise ourselves as commoners! Then we can eavesdrop on people and get their honest opinions."

Elsa shook her head. "I don't think that's a good idea."

* * *

"I _still_ don't think this is a good idea..."

Elsa somehow found herself slinking into a dank, stinky tavern, her face concealed by a dull brown hood.

"Oh, come on," said Anna, tugging her own hood lower over her eyes. "Where's your sense of adventure?"

Of course, they still stood out from the crowd on account of wearing such thick cloaks when it was sweltering out, but most people seemed to assume they were just homeless and promptly ignored them.

"Try to keep a low profile," Elsa whispered. "It's only been a day. The eternal winter's bound to be a popular topic of discussion. All we have to do is introduce the idea subtly."

"Yeah, sure, got it." Anna's eyes were practically glazed over with thrill. She immediately marched to the front of the crowded bar and slammed some coins on the counter. "I'd like to buy some drinks for my friend and me," Anna announced, not even bothering to disguise her voice. "And on a completely unrelated topic, what's your opinion of the queen?"

At the back of the bar, Elsa brought her palm to her face.

"Vhat a funny question." The bartender turned around, revealing himself to be a huge, blond, broad-shouldered man with facial hair that wrapped itself directly around the edges of his clean-shaven chin.

"I know you!" gasped Anna, stumbling backwards. "You're that sauna guy!"

"Oh no no no," the huge man chuckled. "That vould be my brother, Oaken. Totally unique individual."

"Ah. Of course." Anna sighed in relief. She'd nearly blown their cover in the most embarrassing, shoot-yourself-in-the-foot manner possible. "Now what were you going to say about my sister- _the queen_. I meant 'the queen.'"

"Vell, she seems like a nice lady." As he spoke, the bartender set to work preparing the girls' drinks – a murky brown liquid of dubious origin. "And she does have fancy ice powers. But on the other hand, she did nearly bring the whole country to ruin vith an uncontrollable vinter storm, so overall, the ratio of good to bad's not in her favor." He gave an apologetic shrug.

"I see." Elsa took a seat on a bar stool next to Anna's and pulled her hood tighter over her face. "And it doesn't bother you that the queen has sorcery?"

"Eh, my sister has magic, too," said the bartender. "Turned me into a salamander for three days once. True story." He handed the girls their drinks and then moved on to other customers.

"…Right." Elsa leaned in to whisper to her sister, "Maybe we should talk to someone else. Something about this man doesn't strike me as 'typical Arendelle citizen.'"

"Yeah, did you get a load of that accent?" scoffed Anna. "He must be from, like, the other side of the earth."

Unfortunately, the more "typical" citizens failed to paint a better picture of their new queen. Some complained of the sudden loss of their crops, gardens, and livestock from the cold, and even the people mostly unaffected by it still managed to find something to dislike about the "Snow Queen," as they called her. One particularly prudish customer even made a remark about how Queen Elsa was allowing her sister to run around the kingdom unchecked, become a party girl, and date a wild man.

"Oh _yeah__?_ Well _maybe_ the princess doesn't _care_ what _you_ think of her!"

(Elsa had had to drag Anna away from that one.)

In the end, the girls were left seated back at the bar, staring into their drinks and fuming internally.

"Adrian was right about something else, too," said Elsa. "I don't know what exactly my powers are capable of. I spent so long hiding from them that I never experimented at all until I made the Ice Palace."

"He was still an idiot, though," said Anna. "I mean, your ice is _not_ poisonous. That's just dumb!" She paused. "Um, it's not, right?"

"No, of course not." Elsa allowed herself a small chuckle. Anna had eaten it all the time when they were little. In fact, Elsa was about to say this aloud, but she caught herself.

Elsa had yet to explain to Anna about her altered memories. She was _going_ to tell Anna – Really, she was – but something kept staying her tongue. Ever since the winter ended, Anna had been getting along so well with Elsa, but if she learned her mind had been tampered with... would she see Elsa differently? Would she still feel the same as now?

An old familiar guilt bubbled in Elsa's stomach. Anna, sensing her unease, smiled and placed her hand over Elsa's own. Elsa fought the impulse to jerk away.

"I know things have been hard for us, especially..." Elsa faltered. "...especially these last three years. But we're going to make things right. I'm making three promises to you, Anna." She counted off on her fingers. "The gates will always stay open, we will never do business with the Southern Isles or Weaseltown ever again, and our relationship is never going back to the way it was."

"Sounds like a deal." Anna leaned in for another hug. "And boycotting Hans and his no doubt equally crazy brothers is a nice touch."

"I'll never let anyone like Hans hurt you again," said Elsa. "In fact, I wouldn't hold it against you if you've been put off the idea of romance altogether."

"You, uh, also wouldn't hold it against me if I, totally hypothetical here, got a new boyfriend already, right?"

Elsa raised an eyebrow.

"He's really nice and we went on an adventure together!" Anna hurriedly said. "That means we're bonded for life!"

"Anna..." Elsa failed to stifle a groan. "A couple days ago, you were begging to marry Hans."

"We're gonna take it slow," Anna assured her. "I'm not gonna marry anyone anytime soon, okay? Trust me, I learned my lesson."

"But you haven't known Kristoff that long, either. He's practically still a stranger."

"Yeah, a stranger who ran headfirst into a blizzard to try and save me with a true love's kiss." Anna rolled her eyes. "Look, I'm not saying he's definitely my true love, but, c'mon, he's a good guy."

"Well, I wish you the best, then." Elsa found herself staring into her mug. "Sorry if I seem a little gloomy today. I'm happy, Anna. Really, I am. Our lives are so much better now. But... I wish that ice harvester hadn't had to open his mouth." She let out a heavy sigh. "I guess I shouldn't be so surprised people are unhappy with me, considering everything I've done."

"Hey, what'd we say about not thinking like that?" said Anna. "Trust me, Elsa, give it some time, and I bet you'll go down as, like, the greatest queen in history. There's nothing to get all angsty about. Everything is fine."

"I know." Elsa smiled, sipped her drink... and immediately spat it back out, shrieking.

Every eye in the tavern fell on her. Screaming and jumping out of her seat had been a good way to draw attention to herself, but what really made people stare was more likely the fact that Elsa's overturned drink was now frozen to the counter.

Elsa made a noise halfway between a moan of pain and a sob, then fled the building.

"Elsa? Elsa, wait!" Anna was quick to follow.

For about a minute, the residents of the tavern stood in stunned silence.

"Heeeeey, that girl has ice powers!" said the bartender. "Funny, our queen has the exact the same thing…"

* * *

Anna found her sister just outside the tavern where they'd tied their horses, her back turned.

"Elsa, what's going on?" Anna asked in alarm. "You've been doing so great controlling your ice!"

Elsa slowly turned around to face her sister. Her eyes were red. "It… hurt… me," she spluttered, clearly at a loss for words.

"What did?"

"The drink," Elsa got out. "It hurt my tongue, and then, I- I- I don't know, I just made ice."

Anna blinked, puzzled. You could see the exact moment she connected the dots because she suddenly burst out laughing.

"I don't see what's so funny," Elsa grumbled.

"Oh, Elsa, I'm sorry, I didn't mean-" Anna stifled her giggles. "That was hot chocolate. You just didn't let it cool down long enough. Haven't… Haven't you ever been burned before?"

"No," Elsa said tightly, "I've only recently gotten in the habit of not freezing everything I touch."

"But couldn't you still tell it was hot when you touched the cup?"

"What do you mean?"

"Didn't the handle feel warm?"

Elsa's face remained clueless.

"Wait a minute." Anna's eyes widened. "You _have_ felt warm at _some_ point in your life, haven't you?"

Elsa blinked. "I've felt… not cold?"

A wave of guilt hit Anna's chest. It was like if a deaf person suddenly got their hearing back, and then Anna laughed at them for freaking out at loud noises.

"Sorry," she said sullenly. "I didn't mean to be insensitive or anything…"

Elsa merely sighed and mounted her horse. "Let's go home." She flicked her tongue around inside her mouth. "That was the worst chocolate ever."


	3. Marshmallow Fluff

Anders trudged down the castle halls, muttering darkly to himself about eternal winters and crazy magical teenagers. Eventually, he reached the castle's massive front doors, where he let the latest guest inside. Of course, the long-awaited reopening of the castle gates had led to a substantial influx of visitors to the castle, but this particular guest had been given special permission to be allowed in immediately, though he still had to wade through the jealous glares of the other people in line.

The boy was easily identifiable by his loathsome posture, lack of anything resembling etiquette, and the clumpy way he walked.

"Hey there, I, uh just came by to see the princess," Kristoff said, shrinking under Anders's glare.

"Right this way, sir." Anders kept his voice level, but his eyes took a judgmental look over Kristoff, resting a particularly long time on his unmanly blond hair. Anders led Kristoff inside, wincing involuntarily as he tracked dirt all over the finely woven rug. It was a long, silent walk from the front entrance to the dining hall. Anders sighed in relief when Kristoff finally vanished down the hallway.

In the span of a week, the castle had gone from a quiet, dignified, albeit empty, house of royalty to a place where sentient snowmen ran amok and princesses dated hairy mountain men. It was starting to dawn on Anders that the only thing standing between order and hair-splitting madness was one elderly and overworked butler.

Why, oh why, couldn't Princess Anna have stayed with that nice Hans fellow? Now _there_ was a man who'd known how to act in the presence of royalty. Well, up until that "attempted murder" incident, anyways. Anders had been more heartbroken than Anna.

* * *

"You sure you don't need to be rushed to the infirmary? You look like you're in real agony."

"Very funny."

Of all the things she'd been unable to do before she could control her magic, burning her tongue was the one Elsa had missed the least. She was still making pained faces as she and Anna left the royal stables and made their way through the courtyard, which sadly was no longer a skating rink. It couldn't stay that way forever unless they wanted people slipping and falling on their faces during work hours.

Elsa reviewed her mental list. Reopen the gates? Check. Replace Kristoff's sled? Check. Refreeze the ice-harvesters' lake? Check.

Hmm... What did that leave? There was still that gaping hole in the dungeon wall, but... wasn't there something else? Elsa couldn't shake the feeling she was forgetting something.

"Hey, Elsa?" spoke up Anna as they neared the castle's front door. "Whatever happened to the white streak in my hair?"

Oh, right. Telling Anna the truth.

"White streak?" Elsa feigned ignorance, which, of course, only made her conscience scream louder.

"Y'know, the one I was born with." Anna held out a solid orange pigtail. "I looked in the mirror this morning, and it was, like, totally gone."

Elsa did her best to sound disinterested. "Mmm, that _is_ strange..."

"You know what?" Anna looked thoughtful. "My hair went all white when you froze my heart. Maybe when I turned into an ice-sculpture and back, I was hit with some kinda magic hair dye."

"Well, you know how magic is." Elsa forced herself to take some steady breaths. Her heart was thumping a little too fast. "Bizarre and unpredictable."

"Maybe we can go ask the trolls about it?"

Elsa groaned in spite of herself. She was lucky those stupid trolls hadn't told Anna the truth already.

"Wait a minute. My hair turned all white once you hit me with ice-magic, right? But it was already a little bit white before that, so..." Anna's face lit up. "...what if that means I've got ice-magic, too? Wouldn't that be awesome?" She swished her hands around like she might start shooting ice any second now.

Elsa shuddered at the thought. "If you had powers, I think they'd have manifested by now. I was already making snowflakes when I was a baby."

"Really?" At this, the enthusiasm left Anna's eyes. "So you mean, all those times we played together, you... you were hiding it from me?"

Elsa's heart sank. "No, no, that's not what I-"

She was cut short by the sound of screams.

"That came from inside!"

Elsa said a quick prayer of thanks, then hurried through the front door with Anna. No sooner had the girls thrown it open than a maid pushed past them, shrieking, "It's alive! It's alive!"

Elsa and Anna bolted down the hall, where they quickly found what it was safe to assume was the source of the trouble. Namely, an overturned tapestry being trampled by a runaway pig with a bucket stuck firmly over its head. And at the front of this madness was what might have once been a snowman, only now his head and butt segments had switched locations and his carrot was sticking out his chest.

"Olaf?" said an astounded Elsa. "What are you doing?"

Olaf gave this some deep thought. "I don't know," he said earnestly.

Elsa shook her head, then conjured up an icy pig pen before the little pink beast could do further damage. "Well, try not to cause any more trouble, okay?"

"Okay!" Olaf said brightly. Then he frowned. "Wait, what qualifies as 'trouble,' exactly?"

"Sheesh," said Anna, "I don't remember the one we built as kids being such a handful."

"Actually, Olaf acts exactly how I always pictured he would," said Elsa. "Even his voice matches how I heard it in my head."

"Huh, that's kinda weird." Anna glanced back at the snowman. Olaf was trying to get himself back into proper shape, but his butt didn't seem to be cooperating with the rest of him. "I'm guessing you never pictured him too bright, then?"

"Well, I think it makes him more endearing..."

"Look out!" screamed Olaf. "My butt's out of controooooool!"

It was at this point that the sound of frantic squealing returned Elsa's attention to the icy pig pen. Olaf had put his pieces back in order, and now he'd apparently climbed inside the pen in an attempt to remove the bucket from the poor creature's head.

Elsa brought a palm to her temple. "What are we going to do with him?"

"Trust me, I did way worse when I was a kid," said Anna. "There's a reason Kai's prematurely bald."

"Oh! That gives me an idea."

Elsa and Anna hurried back to the entrance hall, where Anders was busy cleaning traces of cake off a bust.

"Your Majesty?" He looked up at their approach. "What was that screaming? Nobody dead, I hope?"

"It was fine," said Elsa. "In fact, I have a job for you, Anders. You used to babysit Anna when she was little, didn't you? Can I ask you to watch another child for me?"

Anders raised a gray eyebrow. "Is there something you're not telling me?"

"Not a human child." Elsa opened the hallway door to call out, "Olaaaaf!"

"Ooh! Ooh! That's me!" No sooner had she called for him than the snowman bounced into the room, his bright-eyed look of joy permanently fixed on his face.

"Olaf, I'm going to be busy today." Elsa knelt down on her knees to meet the his charcoal eyes. "Anders here will be in charge of taking care of you, okay?"

Olaf turned to examine his new caretaker. For a minute, he was silent. And then he was the opposite. "Alright! We're gonna have so much fun together and we'll run around and play games and make loud noises and you can give me piggyback rides and…"

Anders stared at Elsa. "You hate me, don't you?"

"Please, Anders?" said Elsa, a note of apology in her voice.

Anders made his sourest face.

"Just for today, I promise."

Anders still had half a mind to refuse, but then Elsa made puppy dog eyes at him, and not even the crotchetiest of old men could resist those.

"Confound it all, I'll do it!" Anders threw his hands up in defeat.

"Hurray!" Olaf immediately gave his new friend one of his trademark warm hugs.

"Yeah, it's probably a good idea to get Olaf a babysitter," said Anna. "We don't need him destroying anything else."

"Wait." Anders' eyes narrowed. "What do you mean, 'anything else?'"

"I got to play with paint," Olaf said proudly.

The sisters thought it best to vamoose before Anders had time to change his mind.

* * *

"There you are!"

Kristoff found the sisters hurrying down the castle's winding halls.

"Kristoff!" Anna looked like she'd like to give him a hug, but then she glanced at Elsa and thought better of it. "What are you doing here?"

"Just checking up on you. How'd your little stint as commoners go?"

"Not as well as it could have," said Elsa. "The citizens didn't seem too happy with me."

"Well, who cares what other people think?" said Kristoff, absently scratching his rear. "By the way, you said it was fine if Sven stayed in the royal stables while I'm here, right?"

Elsa gave Anna a look. "We did?"

Anna nodded. "We did." She inched ever so slightly further from Elsa and closer to Kristoff. "Hey, uh, Elsa, if you've got more queen stuff to be doing, Kristoff and I can leave you alone for a while-"

"Nice try," cut in Elsa. "I think I need to have a little conversation with Kristoff."

Anna's face flushed. "Y-You do?"

Kristoff gave her a look. "You told her about the kiss, didn't you?" he asked flatly.

Elsa's eyes bulged. "You _kissed__?_"

"_I just remembered something I gotta go do bye!_" Anna vanished down the hallway with remarkable speed.

As soon as she was gone, Elsa's eyes fell on Kristoff. "So you want to date my sister, do you?"

"Uh..." Apparently, Elsa could make blood run cold even without magic.

* * *

"Watch where you're going!" screamed Anders. "For heaven's sake, slow down!"

"I don't know how!" Olaf yelled from the back of Anna's old bicycle, which was currently hurtling out of control down the dining hall table.

"The pedals!" Anders ran along the edge of the table in a futile effort to catch the out-of-control vehicle. "Push back against the pedals with your feet!"

Olaf looked down at his leg-stumps. "I'm not sure I have any."

* * *

Sven gave Kristoff a look that said, _You're totally screwed, dude. _Elsa had agreed to have this conversation in the royal stables, mostly because Kristoff had a feeling he was gonna need his emotional support animal.

"Look, Your Majesty..." He let out a sigh as he scratched Sven's ears. "I know your sister could do better than me. A _lot_ better. I mean, I appreciate being made Official Ice Master and all, but even with the extra income, I'm not exactly in Anna's social class."

"That's not what concerns me." Elsa was standing in the dead center of the stables, keeping as far away as possible from the palace horses and all the filth they entailed. "I appreciate what you've done for Anna, but how am I supposed to trust you when you're keeping things from her?"

Sven gave Kristoff a look that said, _Now you're double-screwed._

"What do you mean?" Kristoff asked quickly.

"The trolls." Elsa folded her arms. "Anna said you were raised by them."

"Oy..." Kristoff brought a palm to his forehead. "I had a feeling this would come up. Look, I'm gonna go ahead and tell it you straight – Sven and me were there the night Anna's head froze."

Elsa's face remained perfectly tranquil. It was kind of unnerving.

"I was a little orphan kid living on the streets, and when we saw your trail of ice, Sven and me followed it. We overheard everything about your powers and Anna's memories and stuff, and that's when the trolls found us. So, really, we-" Kristoff glanced away. "-we've got to thank you for that. The trolls are our like family. I don't know what we'd have done without 'em."

"So you knew about my magic all along?" Elsa said softly.

"I didn't tell anyone!" Kristoff assured her. "I mean, no one would've believed me anyways, and I'm not exactly a social butterfly in the first place, so-"

"And why didn't you tell Anna all this when you met her?"

"I don't really go around advertising the fact that I was raised by trolls. In fact, how many people here know about them, exactly?"

"Only a trusted few staff members," said Elsa. "They haven't told anyone in a decade. I doubt they'll start _now_."

"Good, good." Kristoff seemed to ease up at this. "I only brought Anna to the valley because her heart was frozen. It was kinda urgent."

"I see." Elsa took a deep breath, then regarded him sternly. "You're not to tell Anna about her altered memories. Understand?"

Kristoff frowned. "Why?"

"It..." Elsa faltered. "It could be upsetting. I don't know how she'd react."

"Hey, you know..." Kristoff hesitated before saying, "When we were traveling together, Anna never sounded mad at you, even after you froze her heart. She loves you a lot."

Elsa turned away, hiding her face. After a brief silence, she said, "Thank you for telling me that."

"Your Majesty..." Kristoff's ears turned a shade pinker. "The way I feel about your sister... I've never felt like this about anyone before. I really want to make it work between us." He shut his eyes. "But I also don't want to step on your toes. I guess what I'm saying is, I'm asking for your permission to see her."

Elsa took this in silently. "You have it," she finally said. "Anna deserves to be happy." She turned back towards him, her eyes narrowing. "But if you do anything out of line-"

"Just say the word, and I'll end things with her." Kristoff held up his hands. "I swear."

"Good." With that, Elsa made for the stable doors. She was about to leave, but then she glanced back. "For what it's worth... you're looking pretty good compared to her last boyfriend."

"Well, yeah," laughed Kristoff. "_Sven_ would look pretty good compared to _him_."

Sven made an indignant snort.

* * *

"_Cooooming throooooough- Agh!_"

Apparently, riding a bike on the dining hall table hadn't been the soundest idea ever. Eventually, the bike's wheel had snagged on the tablecloth, and Olaf had been sent hurtling through the air... and right into a set of steak knives.

"Oh dear lord!" Anders immediately ran to his side, but Olaf merely yanked the knives out and patted his belly back into its proper shape. "You're- You're alright?"

"Yeah!" said Olaf. "I guess it's a perk of being a magical snowman. Plus I don't have to eat, I never need to tinkle-"

"Wait." Anders blinked. "You're saying you can't feel pain?"

"That's right!" Olaf said in a singsong voice.

Olaf wasn't exactly sharp enough to pick up on it, but Anders' fists had started to quiver. It was taking everything he had to restrain them.

* * *

"Kristoff! You weren't turned into a popsicle!"

As soon as Elsa and Kristoff arrived in her bedroom, Anna sprang off the mattress to give him a big, squishy hug.

"Yeah, how about that?" grinned Kristoff. "Turns out Elsa's okay with you dating down after all."

Anna proceeded to give Elsa an equally squishy hug. "Have I mentioned you're the best sister ever yet?"

Elsa smiled. "Just don't give me a reason to disapprove of your relationship, and I won't. Fair?" She turned back to the door. "Now if that's settled, we'd better check up on Anders. Olaf's probably got him at his wit's end."

* * *

When the trio of Anna, Elsa, and Kristoff found Anders, he was seated comfortably on a sofa in the reading room, a nice thick novel in his hands. Every so often, his reading would be interrupted by cries of "Ooh! Ooh! I see a bird!" or "Look at the sun! It's so pretty!" These, of course, came from Olaf, who was perched on a nearby windowsill. Or at least, a third of Olaf was.

"_Anders__!_" snapped Elsa. "Where's Olaf's body?"

Anders looked up from his novel to smile at her. "Locked in the ice chest," he said proudly.

Elsa folded her arms. "When I asked you to babysit Olaf, this wasn't what I had in mind."

"Frankly, my queen, your snowman here ought to be forced to live outside until he's been house-trained," said Anders. "Removing his head from his body is a relatively mild reprimand considering everything he's done."

At this, Elsa groaned. "Olaf, what did you do this time?"

"Isn't heat the best?" said Olaf's disembodied head. "Did you know sometimes if you make things _really_ hot, it'll start a fire?"

"_Olaf__!_" Elsa turned to her sister. "What am I supposed to do with him? I _really_ wasn't planning on having to raise a child anytime soon."

"Sheesh, talk about a single mom," said Anna. "I think Olaf's just restless. I mean, he's trapped in a big castle, and he's got nothing to do with his life." She glanced away. "I, uh, kinda know the feeling."

Elsa hung her head. "Olaf really caught me off guard. I never meant to bring him to life. It just... _happened_. Making life is so different from everything else I can do. It's... It's a little scary when you think about it."

"What? Don't be silly," said Olaf. "There's nothing scary about snowmen. We're lovable and huggable and soft. Y'know, like my little brother Marshmallow."

Elsa raised an eyebrow. "Marshmallow?"

"Oh, you don't mind if I named him do, you?" Olaf hurriedly added. "Because if you already named him Olaf II, I'm totally fine with Marshmallow being his middle name."

"I don't remember making another snowman," frowned Elsa. "I only made you and-" The dots connected. "Oh. _Oh__!_"

* * *

Eight hooves went _tromp tromp tromp_ over the crunchy snow, then _plink _on the stairs in the middle of the wilderness. The girls dismounted their horses. As it turns out, quadrupeds aren't the best at traversing staircases made of ice.

"What a trip," said Anna, wiping sweat off her brow. "How the heck did you ever make it up here on foot?"

"It wasn't fun," said Elsa flatly. "And you hiked here, too, remember?"

"Yeah, but I had a horse. Well, until I lost it. And then I had a sled. Well, until I set it on fire."

"You _wha_-?"

"Y'know what? Let's just head up already!"

Anna started to dash up the stairs, but her sister stopped her. "_I'll_ go first."

Anna rolled her eyes. "Don't be such a worrywart. I'll be fine. I'm sure Marshmallow's friendly."

"He chased you off a cliff."

"Yeah, but that was just because... _Kristoff_ threw a snowball at him. Totally immature of him."

"Well..." Elsa swallowed. "I made Marshmallow when my powers were out of control. I don't know how he'll act now."

"Yeah, well, that's got me thinking," said Anna. "You said Olaf acted exactly how you imagined him to act, didn't you?"

"Yes..."

"Well, maybe Marshmallow works the same way. If he goes berserk and tries to eat us or something, you can just swish your hands around and magic him into being smaller and friendlier like Olaf."

Elsa pursed her lips. "I don't know..."

Anna's brow creased. "Man, I still can't believe we forgot about an entire snow-monster."

"We've been so busy dealing with Hans and the fallout from the winter, we must have lost track of him in the chaos." Elsa let out a sigh. "Let's just hope Marshmallow doesn't hurt anyone before we can find him."

"The North Mountain's pretty uninhabited," said Anna. "And even if he does go on a rampage or something, you've got awesome ice powers. There's nothing to be afraid of."

And with that, Anna zipped up the stairs, Elsa trailing behind her. But it was actually Elsa who reached the top first – One of the perks of being the Snow Queen is that ice isn't slippery for you if you don't want it to be.

Elsa had to pause at the top step to take in the sight before her. The Ice Palace was beautiful as ever, sparkling in the sunlight, rising majestically above the mountaintop. Elsa had to admit, if she'd had to isolate herself from the world somewhere, this had been a gorgeous locale to pick.

"Oh, good, it's not melted yet." Anna waltzed up to pat an icy wall affectionately.

"Let's keep it that way." Elsa waved her hand, causing a little trail of magic to shoot into the sky. All of a sudden, it was overcast. Elsa gave her work an approving nod. Giving the Ice Palace a palace-sized personal flurry à la Olaf's made it even more beautiful. The perpetual, gentle snowfall added just the right touch of tranquility.

"Don't see any giant snowmen around, though," said Anna, glancing left and right. "Where do you think he ran off to?"

A thought struck Elsa. "You don't think he was killed when Hans stormed the Ice Palace, do you?" She found her stomach tightening at the idea.

"What could they have done, _impale_ him to death?" scoffed Anna. "Marshmallow's made of snow. I'm sure he's fine."

Elsa still wasn't reassured. To be honest, when she'd first made Marshmallow, she'd been horrified. Making him hadn't even been a completely conscious action; it was more like a reflex. Elsa had only wanted Anna and the others out of her Ice Palace for their own safety, and she'd had no guarantee the giant snow-monster wouldn't hurt them or worse. In fact, even when Marshmallow returned to the palace, Elsa had been too cowardly to go near him. The snowman had ended up curling himself up by the front door while Elsa hid from him inside.

But even if he turned out to be nothing but a mindless beast, the thought of losing Marshmallow made Elsa's heart beat faster.

While Elsa stewed internally, Anna searched the palace perimeter. "_Marshmallow_? C'mere, boy!"

"Maybe he's inside?"

Anna followed her sister into the Ice Palace. The interior, too, was just as beautiful as before, not to mention slippery. By the time Elsa traversed the stairs around the frozen fountain, Anna was still trying to make it across the room without falling on her butt. Taking her eye off of her sister, even for a moment, left Elsa with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, but Anna was taking forever, and Elsa would only be a minute.

She wandered into the palace's center, where shards of a fallen chandelier were still scattered across the floor from where Hans had "accidentally" dropped it on Elsa's head. Luckily, a quick wave of her hand set things good as new. A gust of freezing wind sent the pieces flying to the ceiling, where they refroze into their proper shape. Elsa gave a content nod, then headed back towards the main entrance.

"Anna?" she called out. "Have you-?"

"_GO AWAY__!_"

"Okay, the good news is I found Marshmallow!" an anxious voice called back.

Elsa dashed downstairs to find a giant, angry snowman staring down her sister. Marshmallow was every bit as gigantic, bulging, and covered in icicle-spikes as Elsa remembered, though that tiara on his head was new.

"Marshmallow, wait!" Elsa yelled, running to his side. "Anna's our friend now!"

The snowman's head shot her way. When the eye-holes in his face fell on Elsa, he let out a gasp. Every last icicle was immediately retracted, leaving him much cuddlier-looking. Slowly, carefully, Marshmallow knelt down, drawing his face nearer to Elsa's.

"You made me," he said.

All the tension left Elsa's body at once. She found herself smiling. "That's right, big guy. I made you." Unsure what to do, Elsa patted him around where his nose ought to be. Marshmallow hummed pleasantly, so she supposed he appreciated the gesture.

"Oh!" The snowman brought his hands to his head. "I found your crown."

Elsa smiled at him. "You can keep it."

"Yeah, it looks good on you," added Anna.

Marshmallow turned to snarl at her. "You'd better not bother my mama!"

Anna drew closer to Elsa. "I don't think he likes me. Why don't you, y'know, do the magic and make him nicer?"

Marshmallow frowned, not seeming to understand. Elsa, meanwhile, took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and raised her arm until it was level with the snowman's face.

"Mama?" said Marshmallow.

And then she lowered it. "I... I don't think that's necessary, Anna. He'll warm up to you."

Elsa was right, of course. Once they explained how Elsa had only wanted Anna away from her palace because she was scared of hurting her, Marshmallow was more than happy to nuzzle with his auntie just as much as his mama. After that, the rest of the sisters' visit to the North Mountain went splendidly. As the sun began to set, Elsa and Anna made for their horses, while Marshmallow opted to stay behind and guard the Ice Palace from intruders (and Elsa made sure to give him a personal flurry of his own in case the North Mountain ever had a scorcher).

Elsa laughed at Anna's jokes and put on a big smile, and for the most part, she felt genuinely happy. But there was a tiny part of Elsa – a part she couldn't bring herself to tell her sister about – that wasn't. Elsa didn't feel _unhappy_, necessarily, just... troubled. Once she'd finally learned to control them, Elsa had led herself to believe that her powers were... well, inconsequential, really. Sure, she was happy to use them for useful things like refreezing the ice harvesters' lake, but for the most part, Elsa planned to use her powers for trifles like ice-skating rinks.

And her snowmen didn't _detract_ from this, exactly. Elsa was happy to have Olaf and Marshmallow in her life. It was just... they were _people_. People Elsa had made with her magic. And the thought that there was something sitting behind her snowmen's eyes, something that could think and feel the same as any other person, made her a bit lightheaded.

Elsa watched Anna sling a leg over a horse. She saw where Anna was coming from about changing her snowmen's minds, but Elsa didn't find herself treating the idea quite so lightly. It wasn't something she expected Anna to understand, but... when Elsa had closed her eyes, she'd felt the magic at her fingertips. If she wanted to, Elsa could go into Marshmallow's mind and remove all trace of aggression.

In the same way she could cut off her own arm.


	4. Warm-Up

"Anna is dead."

The frozen harbor outside the castle. Raging winds spitting a blinding flurry over everything in sight. The sole shape visible through the hailstorm was the dark form of Hans looming over a cowering Elsa, sword held aloft.

And right before her, a corpse. The familiar shape of Elsa's baby sister, a look of terror frozen on her face. Elsa cradled the stiff body in her arms

"Elsa." The person standing before her had changed. Now the man wielding the sword was the king. "What have you done?"

"No, Papa, please-"

The blade fell. And Elsa's eyes shot open.

Just a nightmare. It was always obvious in hindsight, and yet these dreams had a way of fooling her in the moment. Elsa shouldn't have been so surprised. After all, accidentally freezing someone to death had been a regular feature of her nightmares for the last, oh, thirteen years or so. That rude ice-cutter from the yesterday was to blame, no doubt. Plus the fact that Elsa's tongue felt all weird and fuzzy from the hot chocolate scalding.

Elsa waited for her heartbeat to slow, then sat up halfway out of her covers. Daylight was pouring in through the window. _The sky's awake_, Anna would've said. Elsa wasn't too accustomed to having a giant window in her room, but she'd abandoned the old bedroom on account of the memories it held, and this was the nicest replacement available.

It was going to take a great effort for Elsa to drag herself out of bed – The visit with Marshmallow had left her exhausted. She forced herself to remove the covers and plant her feet on the floor. And then she immediately slipped and planted her bottom on the floor, too. This was likely because everything within a two-foot radius of the bed was now covered in a thin layer of ice.

Oh, right, she'd nearly forgotten. Elsa was one of those people who tossed and turned and generated ice whenever she had nightmares. She groaned and rubbed her rear. Apparently, her anti-slipping power didn't apply unless she was consciously thinking about it. This was far from the first time it had happened to her, but it _was_ the first time Elsa could actually make the ice go away.

She felt a lightness in her chest like she was six years old again and it was Christmas morning. Elsa had had control of her powers for days now, and that elation hadn't died down yet. She was hoping it never would. Close eyes. Think about love for sister (Yep, turns out the answer was love all along). Open eyes. Every last drop of ice was gone as suddenly as it'd come. The bed sheets weren't even damp. A grin spread across Elsa's face.

Next up, she ran to the adjacent washroom. Brushing your teeth can be fun when the toothbrush doesn't get covered in frozen spit and the pipes don't freeze and clog up even when you touch the sink handle with your bare hands.

The next few minutes were spent examining herself in the mirror. The change from Elsa's coronation gown to the ice-dress had been sudden and drastic, but Elsa couldn't deny she was pleased with the result – though the dress was currently morphed into an ice-nightgown. Now that Elsa no longer had anything to hide, it was a huge relief to dress in a way that made it clear to everyone that she was the Snow Queen. The sky blue dress of fabric-like frost coupled with her pale skin and silvery hair meant there was really no mistaking it.

The Snow Queen. That's what people were calling her now. Elsa kind of liked the sound of it.

This mental flood of optimism was interrupted by a knock at the bedroom door. "Your Majesty, I thought I heard you up," said a level voice with a hint of an English accent. "Given recent, err, lifestyle changes, I came to ask about the special arrangements we had for your morning routine."

Elsa swung the door open to find Anders waiting for her. "No more special arrangements," she told him, grinning like a loon. "Today I'm bathing like a normal person."

From a young age, Elsa had developed the habit of bathing constantly – Princesses DO NOT have body odor. Of course, this had made a funny predicament when coupled with her tendency to freeze everything she touched. But honestly, in the recent excitement, Elsa had neglected the habit. When you're convinced you're going to spend the rest of your life in an ice palace atop an uninhabited mountain, your priorities tend to change.

Anders led Elsa to the bathing chambers, where he'd already filled the tub with water. Just before Elsa entered, he suddenly said, "Out of idle curiosity, Your Majesty, what ever happened to your coronation dress?"

"My coronation dress?" Elsa repeated blankly.

"Yes. Your coronation dress that the royal tailor spent months designing and cost more than the net worth of a small country."

"Oh, _that _coronation dress. I, err..." Elsa gave an apologetic shrug. "I made my ice-dress over it, and it sort of evaporated."

"'Sort of evaporated?'" Anders's eyebrows quivered.

"I didn't mean for it to happen. I just wanted a new dress, and my magic, err..." Elsa's voice trailed off.

"Can your magic bring it back?" Anders sounded almost heartbroken.

"I, um, I don't know." Elsa slowly backed towards the washroom door. "I haven't tried. I doubt it, though."

"Did you at least keep the tiara studded with priceless jewels?"

"_I'm __very__ overdue for a bath please excuse me._"

* * *

Really, a costly dress was a small price to pay for the day Elsa could finally take a proper bath. Anders still remembered the time Elsa's mother had stormed out of the bathing chambers covered in icicles and declared that from that day forth, Elsa would be handed a bucket of soap and a scrub brush.

Anders had been one of a select few people privy to Elsa's secret from the beginning, so seeing Elsa go about her life without worrying about spontaneous ice-generation was no small matter for him. Had he been the more sentimental type, Anders would've gotten downright teary-eyed.

This whole week had been an emotional roller-coaster. In the span of minutes, the coronation had dissolved into screaming and magic bolts of ice flying every which way like a horrible hailstorm of melodramatic teenage girls. Well, okay, so technically Elsa wasn't a teenager anymore, but in Anders' mind all young people fell into that category until they hit their late thirties.

And the castle was severely understaffed, which meant it'd been up to Anders to scrape ice off the ballroom floor whilst simultaneously calming the masses and praying the new queen didn't freeze her whole kingdom to death.

"_Agh!_" Anders was shaken from his thoughts by a shriek from the bathtub.

He raced into the chamber to find Queen Elsa standing at the foot of the gigantic royal bathtub, wrapped in a hastily-forged ice-towel. She was staring at the bathwater like a cat with its hair on end.

"Your Majesty, are you hurt?"

"The- The water is too hot," Elsa said lamely. She looked as confused as he did.

Anders resisted the urge to roll his eyes and went to dip a finger in the bathwater. Or at least tried to – His finger failed to break the surface. As it turned out, the water wasn't hot at all. It was solid ice. "With all due respect, Your Majesty, I thought you said accidental freezing would no longer be an issue?"

"It wasn't an accident," Elsa said tightly. "The water temperature just took me by surprise, that's all. Here, I can fix it." With another flourish of her hands, she sent a wave of magic into the tub, returning the water to liquid.

"I take it I should refrain from making it that warm in the future?"

"Why was it so hot in the first place?" Elsa said under her breath.

"A _couple degrees_ above room temperature." Anders' voice was a note sharper than it should've been. "Generally, Your Majesty, people find bathing in warm water more pleasant than cold."

Genuine confusion crossed Elsa's face. "Why?"

"I truly couldn't tell you." Anders turned to leave. "But you are perfectly welcome to bathe at whatever temperature you see fit. You are, after all, the queen."

There were no more incidents for the remained of the bath, though Elsa still seemed to be stewing internally when she finally exited the tub and returned to the hallway.

Anders couldn't help but notice Elsa had chosen to keep using her ice-towel rather than the regular cloth one he'd laid out for her. This was odd, but it didn't bother him as much as the fact that the ice-towel seemed to have successfully gotten Elsa dry. If that made even a little bit of sense, it was a strange foreign kind of sense Anders wanted nothing to do with.

"Your clothes, Your Majesty." Anders held up a new, elegant dress the maids had picked out for her.

"Oh, that's alright, I'll just wear my ice-dress." With a flourish of her hands, Elsa sent a wave of sparkles over her body, transforming the ice-towel back into dress-shape.

"_Your. Ice. Dress_." Anders gave the more provocative regions of Elsa's dress the kind of look one normally reserves for their mortal enemy. "Of course. And are you planning on wearing…" He chose his words carefully. "…_nothing_ but the ice-dress?"

Elsa looked pleased with herself. "I'm not hiding who I am anymore. I want everyone to know I'm the Snow Queen."

"Yes," murmured Anders, "I'm sure not a single boy in Arendelle will have any trouble noticing…"

"Sorry, I must have some water in my ear." Elsa smirked and tapped the side of her head. "Could you repeat that louder, please?"

"Perish the thought, ma'am. Now might I suggest you go join your sister at the breakfast table? Or do you only eat 'ice-food' now?"

Elsa let the remark slide. When you'd worked at the palace as long as Anders, you were allowed to get away with a little snark.

Actually, Anders couldn't help but wonder about that. Elsa had climbed a mountain on foot and lived in isolation for days, and from what Anders had heard, she'd been planning on spending the rest of her life in that Ice Palace. It didn't sound like she'd been worried about starvation or anything, so... if Elsa's magic could make sentient life from snow, could it make a nutritious breakfast, too? If she could make a snow-pig, could she make snow-bacon, or...?

Ugh, Anders needed to go lie down again.

* * *

The castle's dining hall could only be described as gigantic. And empty. If she really thought back, Elsa could remember a time when the hall was packed at every mealtime, but even now that the gates were open, the employment of new staff had been a slow trickle. Elsa had every intention of changing that, but for now the dining hall only seated about a handful of off-duty workers, plus Anna over at the royals-only end of the table.

Elsa tried not to make a show of seating herself, but all eyes naturally fell on her anyways. She'd hardly ever been in this room since she was a little girl. Ever since the night Anna's head froze, meals had been brought directly to Elsa's bedroom. There was a surprisingly tense silence as she pulled up a chair next to Anna. Elsa had a feeling she was being scrutinized for accidental ice-creation.

None came. You could practically hear the tension deflate like a balloon.

Despite the monumental occasion for the staff, who'd spent long years guarding Elsa's secret, not a word was spoken. In fact, the only sound was the gentle sobs of joy coming from Gerda. Elsa turned to share a big, dumb smile with Anna. It was a picturesque moment – the day Elsa could finally control her powers, and now nothing could take that away from her.

She absently raised a bite of food to her mouth. A bite of steaming hot egg, specifically.

* * *

"You have to come out from under there eventually!" Anna said from the foot of Elsa's bed. "You're acting like a little kid!"

Elsa's reply was muffled by her bed sheets to the point of incoherence, but it definitely sounded grumpy.

"C'mon, you can't go back to hiding in your room just because your breakfast was too hot!"

"You don't understand." Elsa shifted herself under the covers so that she lay on her belly facing Anna. With her striking blue eyes draped in the blankets' shadows, she looked like some sort of vicious cave creature. "I have to come across as a capable leader, and I just humiliated myself in front of the whole castle. You heard the people in the tavern. They'll jump at the first sign I can't control my powers."

To be fair, freezing her plate to the ceiling while screaming hysterically wasn't the greatest display of control ever, but Anna refrained from saying this aloud. "Then get up and go prove them wrong!"

Elsa bowed her head. "That's… easier said than done."

It was at this moment that the door swung open and a tiny lump of snow entered the bedroom whilst making a bizarre hissing sound. Olaf was actually trying to whistle and discovering that snowmen absolutely cannot do that.

"Hey, guys!" The drama in the room flew right above his deformed head. "Ooh, ooh, are we playing hide-and-seek? I found Elsa – She's under the covers!"

"Elsa's upset because her breakfast was too hot and she had a complete meltdown about it and embarrassed herself," Anna said impatiently.

Olaf's eyes widened – or rather, the shiny orbs of snow around his coal-pupils widened. "But heat is great! It makes me feel all warm and toasty and gooey and moist- "

"Olaf, heat makes you melt." Elsa climbed out of her blankets to face him. "We've been over this. I gave you your personal flurry, but it makes everything around you colder."

"Okay fine, so it can kill me, but heat is still the best," said Olaf. "Besides, you're not made of snow, so- Wait." A horrible thought struck him. "_You're_ not going to melt, are you?" He grabbed Elsa by the waist as if she might turn into a puddle any second now.

"I wouldn't lose sleep over it," chuckled Elsa, returning the hug.

"Well, you must really like warmth, even if you don't realize it," said Olaf. "Why else would you make _me_ like it so much?" And on that note, Olaf wandered out the room.

"Why _did_ you make him like warm hugs?" asked Anna.

Elsa glanced away, shrinking back. It had apparently been one of those silly things you did as a child and were embarrassed to admit to as an adult. "I guess because… I'd never really had one."

The words were hardly out of her mouth before Anna had her locked in a bear-hug. "First time for everything." Anna grinned at her. "Hope it's not too hot for you."

"Alright," Elsa grinned back, "just a _little_ warmth isn't so bad."

Satisfied, Anna ended the hug. "So you've really never felt warm before?"

Elsa shook her head. "Not even before my powers went out of control. Not even before I knew I _had_ powers, I think, but I can barely remember that."

Anna was holding on to her every word. The two had hardly begun discussing that period of their lives. The past few days had been hectic to say the least, so they hadn't gotten around to it.

"I couldn't make more than a couple snowflakes until I was around four," Elsa said solemnly, "but even before then, I was always cold. Our parents used to think I was sick. At first, I could only make it cold when I was feeling especially happy or sad, but it got to the point where it happened all the time. You could see the thermometer drop as it neared me."

"But you must've felt _something_ warm." Anna strained her forehead. "Didn't you ever, I don't know, touch an oven or get a sunburn or something?"

Elsa shook her head. "I was too sheltered. And then, after we were separated, you could've thrown boiling water in my face and it'd be cool by the time it reached my skin. And, well, now that I can control my powers, that 'radius of cold' seems to have weakened. I can definitely feel heat _now_." Elsa rubbed her tongue against the roof of her mouth. "How much longer will my tongue stay burnt, by the way?"

"Ooh, yeah, that'll last a couple days…"

* * *

After their talk, the sisters returned to the dining hall to give breakfast another try. Most of the staff had finished their meals by now, but there were still enough left to make an audience as Elsa once again seated herself at the royal end of the table.

Anna found herself smiling. If anything, this little incident just made her even prouder of her sister. After all, getting past the stigma of using her ice in front of other people was a pretty big step forward for Elsa, and Arendelle hadn't gotten trapped in eternal winter this time, so that was a plus.

Though it didn't escape Anna's notice that Elsa blew hard on her breakfast before putting any of it in her mouth, which left the food covered in a thin layer of frost. Anna rolled her eyes. Baby steps, she told herself.


	5. Memory and Magic

_Crunch, crunch, crunch_.

A pair of boots marched aimlessly through the snowcapped forest. The princess inside them was lost in thought. Don't worry, there hadn't been another eternal winter or anything. This was just the regular, non-eternal kind of winter that'd be over sometime in late February.

Anna should've been happy. Why wouldn't she be happy? Life was great. She'd never in a million years have dared dream things after the coronation would be this good. Yes, there'd been that little "eternal winter" hiccup, but now Elsa and Anna were reunited, the gates were open, and Anna had an awesome boyfriend. Anna's life had basically been unending bliss ever since last July.

The one thing Anna had longed for since she was five – and _especially _these past three years – had finally come to pass. She had a family. An actual family! Sure, two of the primary members were a reindeer and a snowman, but it was a family nonetheless.

On the winter solstice, Elsa had had a birthday party – and not just a "party" where a maid brought a slice of cake to her bedroom, but a big, epic, royal party with music and dancing. And then, just a couple days later, for the first time since she was little, Anna had even had a merry Christmas. Before, Christmas had been one of the only times of the year Elsa was allowed out of her room. Anna remembered clear as day the first time her parents had escorted a nine-year-old Elsa from her bedroom to come sit by the Christmas tree. Five-year-old Anna's hopes had swelled to astronomical levels, only to be dashed against the rocks when Elsa had been hurried back behind the door after less than ten minutes.

But this year had been the total opposite of that. Elsa had spent literally the entire holiday by Anna's side. They'd actually been able to play with their presents together for the first time since- since Anna could even remember!

_Remember_. Wasn't _that_ the word of the day...

Anna really should've been happy. Heck, the biggest thing she'd had to worry about since the winter thawed was that the pickled herring Elsa had somehow convinced her to eat the other day was gonna come back with a vengeance. Anna swore she could still feel it wriggling around her insides.

Yesterday had been a blast. Elsa had finally taken some time off from her queenly duties, and she'd decided the best way to spend the day was to have an epic snowball fight. But today, Anna just felt _bleh_.

She strolled down the forest trail, pulling her magenta cloak tighter over herself to ward off the wind. When you've been cooped up in a castle all your life, wandering aimlessly in the freezing wilderness seems pretty fun. But try as she might, Anna couldn't shake the growing feeling of uneasiness. Elsa was keeping something from her. Every time Anna said something to her about their early childhood or Anna's current, monochrome hair, she got all weird and tense.

Elsa's story didn't add up. If Elsa had really had her magic ever since she was a baby, then why had their parents waited until Anna was five to close the gates and separate them? Why hadn't Anna been separated from Elsa right away? Had something happened?

Anna strained her forehead. Every time she tried to remember too far back, her brain got all hazy. Even Anna's earliest childhood memories involved her and Elsa playing _outside_ in regular, non-magical snow. Anna couldn't remember even the tiniest hint that Elsa had had powers when they were kids, but that didn't gel at all with how Elsa had been on coronation day. The instant her gloves were off, Elsa had been spewing ice willy-nilly. So then, did Elsa _used_ to have control of her magic, but then she lost it somehow?

And sure, Anna could've just confronted Elsa about all this, but... Well, this was going to sound silly, but sometimes Anna couldn't shake this horrible feeling that the instant she asked the wrong question and upset her, Elsa would go right back to locking herself behind a door.

Suddenly, Anna halted her march. You know what? No. They'd been through too much together. Elsa would never do that again. Besides, between Elsa having magic and Hans being a crazed murderer, Anna had had _way_ too many things kept from her.

Anna spun around, ready to march back to the castle. No more secrets. No more lies. No more-

"_Agh!_"

Anna nearly tripped and broke her neck. Weird, she could've sworn this boulder hadn't been right in her path a second ago.

But then the rock popped open, revealing a grinning, big-nosed, big-eared face. "Greetings, my lady."

Oh, yippee. A troll. Everyone's favorite.

* * *

Lately, in her down time, Elsa had been finding herself roaming the Hall of Portraits. Her parents stared at her with firm, regal expressions on their painted faces. After a minute, Elsa tore her eyes away. Instead, she turned her attention towards a nearby portrait of the royal sisters. On the canvas, an eleven-year-old Elsa was trying her best to sit up straight and look sophisticated while an eight-year-old Anna grinned like a maniac.

Elsa remembered the day this portrait had been painted. It was one of the few times Anna had been allowed in Elsa's presence for more than a couple minutes, hence the grinning. But in Elsa's eyes, Anna's grin was overshadowed by the other features of the painting – the white streak in Anna's hair and the gloves on Elsa's hands.

Elsa frowned, wandering further down the corridor. At the end of the row of royal portraits was a big blank spot. This was where the portrait of the newly-coronated Queen Elsa was supposed to go, but, well... Elsa hadn't been able to stand that portrait. When she'd posed for it, Elsa had been wearing her hair up, a dress that covered everything from the neck down, and a pair of gloves. It'd been finished a couple days before the coronation, a time when Elsa's stomach ulcers had had stomach ulcers.

After the eternal winter, Elsa had ended up throwing the portrait out and commissioning the court painter to make a new one of her in her ice-dress. And then, of course, Anna had decided _she_ wanted a portrait of herself in a new dress, too. The two of them had already posed and everything, but the painter had asked for more time to perfect things. He'd been working for months now. What on earth was taking so long?

Elsa was shaken from her thoughts by the door creaking open. She turned to find a certain redheaded princess at the end of the hall. "There you are. I was looking for you."

"I took a walk." Anna's voice was uncharacteristically hollow.

Elsa moved towards her, but Anna turned away. "Anna, what's wrong?"

"There's..." Anna took a breath. "There's something you've been keeping from me."

Elsa's stomach went taut. She shouldn't have been so shocked, she knew. This was bound to come up eventually.

"You said you've had magic ever since you were little, but I didn't remember ever seeing it when we were kids," said Anna. "I kept trying to think back to our childhood, all those times we played together, trying to see if there was some sign or- or hint that I'd missed, but... every time I thought about it too hard, my head would get all foggy. I thought that was really weird, and then I was out walking in the forest, and I bumped into a troll."

Elsa's eyes clamped shut. Here it came...

"He said my memories were missing!" Now Anna was going a million words a minute. "_He said when we were little we were playing together and then you froze my head kinda like how you froze my heart later and that's why I had that white streak in my hair and so our parents freaked out and took me to the trolls and Grand Pabbie healed me but he also changed all my memories so when we played with your magic I'd remember it like we were playing with normal snow in the wintertime and that's why our parents kept us separated so you wouldn't freeze me again and then I went to Kristoff but he got all weird about it and told me to talk to you!_"

She stopped to pant.

"I- I think Kristoff knows what happened since he was, y'know, raised by trolls and stuff." Anna gave Elsa a look. "Did you know, too?"

"Anna, I'm sorry." Elsa's voice trembled in spite of herself. "I had no choice but to hide my powers when we were little." She slowly opened her eyes. "But I have a choice now. I should have told you about Grand Pabbie's magic."

"Why didn't you?"

The image of a little girl hitting the ballroom floor flashed through Elsa's mind. "It's just hard for me to talk about that night."

* * *

It was hard, but Elsa managed it. By the time the conversation winded down, the sky wasn't even awake – which, given how far north Arendelle was, meant it was beyond late. Elsa had lead Anna to her bedroom, where she'd filled Anna in on their childhood with as much detail as she could remember. She'd tried to describe how they'd played together with Elsa's magic, but Anna's memory had stubbornly insisted otherwise.

Currently, Elsa was tucked under her covers while Anna sat atop them with her head in Elsa's lap.

"You're sure you're not mad at me?"

Anna gave a bittersweet smile. "Of course not. If anything, I'm..." Her brow creased. "I'm mad at Mom and Dad. I mean, they really had me mind-wiped just because of one stupid accident?"

Elsa shook her head. "It wasn't like that. To heal your frozen head, Grand Pabbie had to remove _all_ magic from you. He removed your memories of magic, too, to be safe."

Anna let out a huff. "What, so _remembering_ magic counts as _having_ magic? Yeah, _that _makes sense."

"That's how magic is," said Elsa. "Bizarre and unpredictable. I should know."

"Well, if he can take my memories out, Grand Pabbie can put them back in, right?"

"Maybe..." Elsa looked thoughtful.

"Hey, that troll who talked to me..." said Anna. "He said he had magic, too. Called himself Brock the Mystical. He offered to fix my memories for me, but I kinda freaked out and ran off without giving him an answer."

"'Brock the Mystical?'" Elsa raised a skeptical eyebrow. "I don't know, Anna... Should you really be trusting a stranger _again?_"

Anna folded her arms. "Well, if any of the trolls are crazy murderers or something, I like to think Kristoff would've mentioned it."

"But why would he approach you like he did?" asked Elsa. "Is he really just being nice? What does he have to gain from helping you?"

"I dunno. I think he wants to prove his magic is as good as Grand Pabbie's or something." Anna sat up to meet her eyes. "Does it really matter? I want my memories back pronto! Come on, what's the worst that could happen?"

* * *

Countless trolls ran screaming as the inferno engulfed more and more trees.

The scene in the forest outside the Valley of the Living Rock could only be described as pandemonium. A handful of the more level-headed trolls were still diligently dousing the blaze with pots of water from the nearby brook, but just as many were stumbling around like chickens with their heads cut off.

As it turned out, Brock the Mystical lacked the ability to restore Anna's memories. He also lacked the ability to perform higher cognitive functions. Apparently, the other trolls had just left him in a hut outside their village and tried their best to forget about him, and Elsa couldn't say she blamed them. Brock had tried to brew Anna a memory-restoring potion, but all he'd accomplished was to knock a coal out from under the cauldron and set his house on fire. It'd been so hot and dry out lately, the flames had spread in a matter of seconds.

Now Elsa was standing in the middle of the forest clearing, surrounded by a wall of fire. Over by the creek, Anna and Kristoff were giving her expectant looks. Apparently, they were beginning to question the necessity of their pots of water when they had a perfectly good Snow Queen on hand.

Elsa raised a trembling arm. This should've been effortless. She'd coated the whole country in snow – one little forest was like nothing to her. Yet thus far, Elsa had only mustered up enough magic to extinguish a handful of trees.

It wasn't just the heat. It was the... the _shape_ of the fire. The way it flickered like something alive. Elsa had never seen so much fire in all her life. She couldn't move. Her heart was going to explode out of her chest. Her-

"_Any day now, Elsa!_" Kristoff said through gritted teeth.

His voice jolted Elsa back to reality. She waved her hands, but her ice only hit one tree at a time. It was like something was blocking it, like... like her magic itself was being suffocated.

"This isn't working fast enough!" Elsa called out. "I need to see which way it's going!"

She shut her eyes and took a deep breath, though the air scorched her lungs. She just had to focus. Remember what being on the North Mountain had felt like. Remember...

A pillar of ice emerged from beneath Elsa's feet, sending her spiraling into the air. The smoke and flames were left far below. Almost immediately, Elsa's heart rate slowed back to normal. She took a generous breath, filling her lungs with air that was clear and cold like air ought to be.

Elsa raised her arms and closed her eyes. She could feel the wind rustling her cape and her braid. Her eyes shot open, sending a flurry of snow clouds over the forest.

The next instant, every drop of fire was extinguished.

"You did it!"

Anna, of course, was waiting to give Elsa a big hug once she unfroze the pillar and returned to solid ground, and she was accompanied by Kristoff and a horde of cheering trolls.

"Looks like you're not so scared of heat after all." Anna gave Elsa a playful punch on the arm.

"Yeah, I... I guess not." Elsa stared at the remains of the trees. They were shriveled and black. "Come on, let's go home."

She walked away – hopefully before anyone noticed how rapidly her chest was heaving.

* * *

"Aw, man!" Brock the Mystical overlooked his hut, or at least, what was left of it. "Where am I going to live now?"

"Don't worry, Brock." A pair of larger, more muscular trolls came up behind him, putting their hands on his rocky shoulders. "You can stay with us."

"Really?" Brock's face lit up. "You mean I'm allowed back in the village? Even after I nearly burned down the whole forest?"

"Yeah," said the bigger of the trolls in a deep, beefy voice. "We should have space for you... in the prison cave."

"_Wait! No! Please! Anything but that! Not the prison caaaaave-!_"

And that was the last anyone ever saw of Brock the Mystical.

* * *

Elsa picked at her dinner. It'd been hours, and the flames were still dancing before her every time she shut her eyes. Normal people, she was beginning to realize, weren't _that_ afraid of fire.

"It's funny, Elsa," Anna said from the seat across from her. "I was so worried about not being able to remember your magic, I forgot about the magic right here."

"What do you mean?" Elsa asked absently.

"This. Us." Anna gestured to the two of them. "There's magic in remembering together."

"There sure is." Elsa forced a smile.

What was wrong with her? The fire was gone. Life was perfect. There was nothing to be afraid of.

* * *

"Ah! It's finally perfect!"

The man set down his brush and palette, then admired the beautiful finished canvas before him. His drawing room was filled to the brim with exquisite pictures, but this one left them all behind. It was a portrait of Arendelle's new queen. The palace had commissioned him quite a hefty sum for this thing, which he'd taken as a challenge to make it as perfect as possible. It'd taken him all of winter and part of spring to finish because, try as he might, he just couldn't get it to look as gorgeous as the real deal.

The portrait of the princess rested nearby. He'd finished it some time ago, as her beauty wasn't nearly as difficult to capture. With one being the ugliest and ten being the face of Aphrodite herself, Princess Anna was a respectable eight out of ten, whereas Queen Elsa was clocking in at the full ten points.

The painter chuckled to himself. With the pay the palace was giving him, he'd be living like royalty himself. Not like his no-good brother, who'd been reduced to selling his depraved, smutty artwork on the streets. Though his brother _would_ inherit his entire mansion should any misfortune happen to befall him.

"_What a beautiful painting_."

A raspy voice sent a shiver down the man's spine. He spun around in his seat, only for a bony, black hand to clamp over his mouth, muffling his screams...


	6. Bad People

The crowd outside the palace gave Kristoff another round of glares as he once again cut in line. But this time, the glares weren't only out of jealousy, but also due to the fact that he was heaving a big boulder over his shoulders. Kristoff had nearly lost his balance and dropped it on more than a few people's toes. Sven, too, gave an irritable snort as he wandered off from his owner into the courtyard. Sven had a policy of never letting anybody the weight of a baby whale ride him, so he'd had to be bribed with quite a few carrots before he agreed to go all the way from the Valley of the Living Rock to the castle with a troll on his back.

"Don't mind me!" Kristoff announced as he barreled through the palace's front doors with boulder in hand. "Just carrying around a completely ordinary rock! Nothing to see here..."

By the time he made it up the spiral staircase and into Elsa's bedroom, Kristoff's arms were seconds away from falling off. He let out a huge sigh of relief when he finally dropped the boulder onto the carpet.

"Wow, you made that look effortless," Anna smirked, pecking him on the cheek.

"Just gotta lift with the knees," said Kristoff. "I've got plenty of experience carrying these guys. A little more experience than I'd like, in fact."

"By the way, have you seen Olaf anywhere? I haven't found him all day."

"Sorry, no. But I'm sure he's around here somewhere."

* * *

Anders sighed contently and turned the page. In his not inconsiderable opinion, there were few joys in life greater than sitting in your favorite armchair by the fireplace with a gripping novel in your lap.

"Hi, did you miss me?" A fluffy white head inserted itself between the book and the butler.

Anders looked skyward. "Whatever I did to deserve this, I'm sorry!"

* * *

Elsa shut the bedroom door behind them and locked it. "There," she said. "Nobody will see him now."

At these words, the boulder uncurled itself into the familiar shape of a haggard old troll with a mane of dried grass. Grand Pabbie rubbed the sleep from his eyes, then turned to Elsa. "It's been a long time, Your Majesty. I'm pleased to see you finally have your powers under control. To be perfectly honest, this situation's turned out far better than I'd expected."

"It's been a blessing," said Elsa. "It's almost surreal, using my powers so openly without worrying how people will react."

Grand Pabbie smiled, then turned to Anna. "Now, I believe you're ready for your memories to be restored?"

Anna's face lit up. "Yeah!"

Obviously, with Brock the Mystical being a bust, Grand Pabbie had been the next logical choice to fix Anna's memories. He'd have done it sooner, but apparently, when you got to be four and a half billion years old, you tended to spend all winter hibernating. But now that February had turned into March, Grand Pabbie was up and raring to go. Well, okay, Anna _might _have begged Kristoff to wake him a weenie bit early, but, c'mon, Grand Pabbie was the one who'd tampered with Anna's memories in the first place. It was only fair that he hurry up and fix them.

"I take it you've already learned of what happened?" said Grand Pabbie.

"Well, I did, but I'm not too sure I understand it all." Anna's brow furrowed. "I mean, Elsa hit me in the head with ice when we were kids, and the only way to save me was by giving me a memory-wipe? Doesn't really make much sense."

"Unlike a frozen heart, which requires an act of pure emotion to thaw, a frozen head requires something logical," said Grand Pabbie.

"But why couldn't Mom and Dad have just told me about Elsa's magic after you healed me?"

"What good would it have done?" Grand Pabbie asked wistfully. "You'd still be separated from your sister. Would the truth have brought you anything but pain?"

"But- But they _lied_ to me!" Anna's voice sounded halfway between hurt and furious.

Elsa placed a palm on her shoulder. "They were scared for my safety if word of my powers ever got out. You were too young to keep a secret. They didn't want to burden you with it."

"When were they planning on telling me, when I turned sixty?" huffed Anna.

Elsa shut her eyes and sighed. "They'd always promised things would change as soon as I had my ice under control, but I'm not sure if that ever would have happened."

"Yeah, I wouldn't exactly call 'conceal, don't feel' a winning strategy."

"They never _wanted_ us apart, Anna," said Elsa. "They just needed you to be safe. They risked their own lives to be with me, but they would _never_ have risked yours."

Anna nodded stiffly.

Grand Pabbie sighed, too. "I'm sorry for my role in your isolation, Your Highness. My words were intended only to aid your family, but I can see they instead caused a great deal of pain. Fortunately, the two of you clearly no longer need to be separated." He gestured towards Anna's hair, which had not the slightest hint of white in it. "They would have preferred it that way."

"Yeah, who'd have thought all it'd take for Elsa to get control was someone swinging a sword at Anna?" said Kristoff.

"What it took was an act of true love," said Grand Pabbie. "An action that made it so clear to Elsa that Anna loved her, she could no longer deny it to herself. Some of the most powerful magic is fueled by self-sacrifice. In hindsight, it makes perfect sense that it would give Elsa control of her powers on top of thawing Anna's heart."

He turned to Anna. "Now, bear in mind that to prevent your head from freezing, I was forced to purge it of all magic, including your memories of magic."

"What, did I have any other magic in me?" Anna perked up at the idea. "Ooh, ooh, could I have had ice powers, too?"

Grand Pabbie shook his head. "Cryomancy is exceptionally rare, and sorcery as powerful as your sister's is even rarer. When your parents found my valley, Elsa was leaving a trail of solid ice behind their horse as it galloped, and she was only eight years old! A cryomancer of that age should have barely been able to sustain a snowball."

Anna looked blank. "Cryomancy? What's that?"

"From the Greek _kruos_ and _manteía_," Elsa said readily. "It means 'ice magic.'" She gave Anna a look. "Didn't your tutor go over etymology with you?"

Anna promptly went bright red. "Oh, yeah, duh, I knew that! Of course, that's, y'know, basic day one entomology stuff."

Grand Pabbie chuckled to himself before continuing. "At any rate, I doubt two cryomancers have ever been alive at the same time, and magic cares little for blood relations when manifesting itself."

He held out a palm, conjuring up some sparkling lights to punctuate his speech. "That being said, every person has within them at least a little bit of magic. Even if they're not born with sorcery, many can still learn to cast spells or at least acquire a curse. But by stripping you of your magic, princess, I took that potential away from you."

"There goes my career in witchcraft," muttered Anna.

"But then why…" Elsa's voice trailed off. "Well, never mind."

Grand Pabbie gave her a knowing look. "Let me guess – You want to know why I didn't remove _your_ magic, but you won't ask it aloud because the idea upsets you too much."

Elsa nodded feebly. She was surprised with herself – Elsa thought she'd spent the last thirteen years loathing her powers, but now the idea of losing them made her knees tremble.

"Well, you have nothing to worry about," said Grand Pabbie. "Your parents asked me the same thing, and I'll tell you exactly what I told them – Your magic is so tightly interwoven with who you are that it can't be removed without also removing _you_. Why do you think your power is at its peak when your emotions are high, why it rages out of control when you doubt yourself…?"

"So you're saying you can't remove it?" Elsa felt more relieved than she'd expected.

"I suppose I could," frowned Grand Pabbie, scratching his chin, "but it would leave you comatose, no doubt."

"Okay, but what about my memories?" said Anna.

"I'm getting to that," chuckled Grand Pabbie. "What you have to keep in mind is that when I say I can 'remove magic' from a person, I don't mean that I can literally remove it like an amputated organ. No, magic can never be _completely_ erased. Think of it more like being locked away. And what can be locked can always be unlocked."

A smile crept across Anna's face. "You mean, like, right now?"

"Of course." Grand Pabbie beamed at her. "It only takes a minute."

Anna practically vibrated in place, and the happiness must have been contagious because as soon as Anna met their eyes, Elsa and Kristoff started smiling, too.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Do some magic and fix my brain!" Anna closed her eyes and clenched her fists, as if she was expecting every detail to come flooding back any second now.

"It's not that simple," said Grand Pabbie. "The unaltered memories still exist, but they require some coercing before they'll resurface. You're going to need an anchor point."

Anna looked blank. "A what now?"

"An anchor point. You see, if an item holds special significance to a person, they'll project their memories onto it. In other words, for me to cast the spell, you'll need to give me a physical object closely tied to your childhood. Specifically, something related to playing with Elsa's snow, seeing as that's the primary theme of the memories I altered."

"Oh. Right. Um…" Had there been no importance assigned to the task, Anna could've come up with dozens of acceptable items, but now that she was put on the spot, her mind drew blanks. She gave her sister a pleading look, but Elsa just shrugged.

"Maybe a favorite toy?" offered Grand Pabbie.

"What about those dolls you used to have?" said Elsa. "The ones made to look like us?"

"Oh, those got broken." Anna hung her head, her cheeks reddening. "It was after you refused to build a snowman one too many times, and the, uh, head of the Elsa doll got… ripped off."

Elsa raised an eyebrow.

"How about clothing?" asked Grand Pabbie. "Was there any particular outfit you wore to play in the snow?"

"I'm a princess," said Anna. "I had, like, three hundred different outfits just to wear around the house."

"Yes, but did any of them hold sentimental value?"

"Um…" Anna took several seconds to ponder this. "Not really, no."

Grand Pabbie groaned. "There must be _something_…"

"Ooh! What about Elsa herself?" Anna tugged on her sleeve as if Elsa was an item on display. "She was in my childhood a bunch."

"I said an _object_, not a _person_-"

"I wore pigtails all the time! How about my pigtails?"

"You're not quite getting this, are you?"

"What about my snow?" Elsa suddenly said, forming a small snowball in her hand. "It's a physical object."

Grand Pabbie shook his head. "Snow is too impermanent. It melts, it changes shape… Perhaps if there was some distinct pattern to it that you could recreate-?"

The instant the words left his mouth, the door burst open and a terrifying old man stormed into the bedroom. Where once his hair had been brushed perfectly straight and his suit had been crisp and tidy, now it was all a disheveled mess. And, probably completely unrelated, he carried a midget-sized snowman in his arms.

"There!" Anders screamed, roughly depositing Olaf on the carpet beside Elsa. "Stay with your creator! _And never go near me again you incessant cretin__!_" And with that, Anders marched back out, muttering incomprehensibly under his breath.

Everyone in the bedroom stood in silence for a while.

"I think I've got a new best friend!" said Olaf.

It took Anna another second to realize: "Olaf! We can use Olaf as an anchor point!"

"Yeah! I'd make a great anchor point!" Olaf immediately agreed. "What's going on?"

"He's snow in a familiar shape, since we built him when we were little," said Anna, "Plus, he's not _exactly_ a person. I mean, he's not flesh and blood, right?"

"I suppose…" Grand Pabbie moved closer to Olaf. It felt oddly appropriate having the two non-human midgets standing directly beside one another. Pabbie placed his palms on Olaf's temples.

"Ooh, your hands are cold!" said Olaf. "Actually, since I'm made of snow, I guess _everything_ is cold to me… Also, I still don't know what's going on."

After a moment, Grand Pabbie removed his hands, surprise overtaking his face. "It seems that snowmen _can_ be anchor points. You are filled to the brim with Elsa's and Anna's childhood memories."

"Well, yeah, they made me as kids," said Olaf. "Though now that I think about it, I don't remember being able to think and be alive and stuff until they were grown-ups… I just woke up one day and saw Elsa shooting ice everywhere, dancing around some mountaintop, and singing like a crazy woman." He tried to shrug, but without any proper shoulders, Olaf only managed to bob his twig-arms up and down.

"I'd been meaning to ask you about Olaf, actually," Elsa spoke up from the back of the room. "Why can I make snowmen come to life? Is that normal for cryomancers?"

"The ability to create life is held only by the most powerful of magic-users," answered Grand Pabbie, turning to face her. "And it's also a clear illustration that your powers extend far beyond mere snow and ice creation."

"Yeah, she can make dresses, too," said Olaf.

For a second, a dark expression crossed Grand Pabbie's face. "I don't suggest you use this particular power lightly, Your Majesty."

"I completely agree," said Elsa. "Believe me, I'm not planning on creating any more snowmen."

"Good, good." Grand Pabbie eased up at this. "At any rate," he added, almost to himself, "with your powers under control, it shouldn't become an issue..."

"The whole idea of making life troubles me, to be honest," said Elsa. "I mean, what if Olaf melts completely, but then I refreeze him? Did he die? Did I just make a copy of him...?"

"Well," said Grand Pabbie, "if you believe that stream of consciousness means-"

"Discussing talking snowman philosophy is great and all," cut in Anna, "but can we please get back to fixing my brain now?"

"Alright, alright…" Grand Pabbie placed himself between Anna and Olaf, taking each of them by the hand – or stick, in Olaf's case. "Now, Princess Anna, close your eyes and relax your mind. This should only take a moment."

Anna nodded and did as she was told.

"What do I do?" asked Olaf, whispering for no real reason.

"You're supposed to be an inanimate object. Do whatever you want."

"Oh, okay." Olaf tried his hand at whistling again. Grand Pabbie chose not to remark on the bizarre hissing noise he made.

Elsa lurked in the back of the bedroom by her mirror. She watched, intrigued, as all three links in the human-troll-snowman chain started glowing, a faint aura of golden light enveloping them. Sometimes her own power seemed so familiar and commonplace that Elsa forgot just how, well, _magical_ magic could be.

Just as the golden light reached its peak radiance, Grand Pabbie opened his mouth and half-chanted, half-sang:

"_Anchor help replace,_

_Her precious missing thoughts._

_The past was not erased._

_She has only forgot_."

As suddenly as it'd come, the brilliant light vanished and all that was left were the girl, troll, and snowman standing hand-in-hand in the center of the bedroom.

Olaf had a face not unlike a six year old boy watching a dinosaur tromp through his backyard. "That… was… _awesome_! Let's do it again!"

Elsa ran straight to her sister. "Are you alright? How do you feel?"

"Yeah, actually, I… don't feel any different." Disappointment gripped Anna's voice.

"Try and recall something from your childhood," Grand Pabbie said as he released Anna and Olaf from his grasp.

"Okay, let's see…" Anna made a squinty face and stuck out her tongue, pulling off that rare "exact opposite of a proper princess" look. "When we were little, Elsa and I played in the snow all the time, and we did it… outside."

A wave of defeat hit everyone in the room (except Olaf, who still had no idea what was going on). Caught in an awkward social situation, Anna defaulted to her time-honored tactic of rambling aimlessly. "And we'd build snowmen and I always wore my mittens and, hey, remember that one winter it didn't snow very much, and I was so disappointed that you…" Her eyes lit up. "…_made it snow right there in the bedroom_."

Having lost memories restored can be one of the most wonderful sensations life has to offer. It's hard to put into words, but you could say it feels like the rush you get right when you come down from the peak of a swing. One moment you can't remember anything, and then, _whoosh_, it all comes back.

The shock was enough to send Anna off her feet and introduce her butt to the rug, but when Elsa ran to her aid, she found Anna with a giant, goofy grin eating away at the edges of her cheeks.

"I remember everything!" She pulled Elsa into a hug. "Like how we built all those snowmen – It must've been, like, a gazillion – and the time you accidentally froze the cat's tail, and the time I tried your homemade snow cones, and the time we snuck into the kitchen and ate all that chocolate, and when Anders tried to chase us out, you made the floor ice and he slipped and couldn't work again for weeks!"

Elsa winced. She'd forgotten that last one.

"And then there was the time you made it hail all over that ugly portrait of you when you were six because you hated it so much, and you froze our tutor's tea, and-"

"I'd suggest confining your sister to bed rest for at least the next twenty-four hours," said Grand Pabbie. "Having memories restored may seem like a pleasant sensation, but it can leave one… giddy. I've seen too many people slip and hurt themselves in their excitement."

"Oh, come on, I'm totally fine," scoffed Anna as she pulled herself to her feet. "I'll just go and _oh and that time Elsa froze my pigtails and it was soooo funny-_ Oof!"

After that, it was a bit harder to protest Grand Pabbie's advice, and Anna quickly found herself trapped in her own bedroom under the covers.

Grand Pabbie stood at the door with Kristoff, preparing to leave.

"Thank you for everything," Elsa told the old troll. "I don't know how I could ever repay you for this."

"No need. It was my magic altering your sister's mind, and that made it my responsibility to handle it."

"Okay, but for the record, I wouldn't object to repayment," said Kristoff. "I'll gladly take any repayment you have to offer." His grin meant he was only half-joking.

"Didn't we already give you a new sled?" said Anna from her bed.

"Yeah, after you broke my old one!"

And with that, the door clicked shut.

Elsa stepped towards her sister's bedside. They were alone at last.

"Hey," said the mighty and powerful Snow Queen, mistress of the ice and frost and leader of the greatest kingdom of the north. "Remember the time I slipped a snowball down Kai's pants and he ran around yelling for twenty minutes?" The most dangerous sorceress this side of the equator burst out into uncontrollable laughter.

"Yeah, and then you tried to blame it on me even though it was the middle of summer!" added Anna, her voice shaking with laughter of her own.

For several long, wondrous minutes, the girls simply sat in Anna's room, giggling like maniacs. But then Anna's laughter died down, and she rolled over under the covers to stare at the far wall.

"Is something wrong?" frowned Elsa.

"No, no, it's just..." Elsa couldn't see Anna's face, but she had a feeling she was frowning. "Elsa, our parents weren't... bad people, were they?"

"What?" Elsa impulsively brought a hand to Anna's shoulder. "Of course not."

"It's just..." Anna let out a heavy sigh. "I remember everything so clearly now. When we were kids, you had _great_ control of your powers, and then, well... you literally lost it overnight."

Elsa let out a sigh of her own. "That's nobody's fault but mine, Anna. Hurting you was the first time I realized how dangerous my powers were, and without that peace of mind, well..."

"Yeah, but did Mom and Dad make that any better? They tried to train you not to feel!"

"They didn't know what else to do," said Elsa. "Like Grand Pabbie said, my magic is rare. We knew almost nothing about how it worked. All we could figure out was that it was tied to my emotions."

"Yeah, but the answer was just love, wasn't it?" Anna flipped back around to meet her eyes. "You learned control because you saw that I loved you. But Mom and Dad loved you, too, didn't they? Why wasn't that enough?"

For a minute, Elsa stayed silent. "Sometimes you don't appreciate what you have until it's gone," she said softly. "Your act of true love didn't give me love that I lacked. It just made me open my eyes to what had been there all along."

"Yeah..." Anna returned her head to the pillow. "I guess I understand..."

Elsa gave her a smile. "Our parents made a mistake, Anna, but their hearts were in the right place. Let's focus on what they did right and not what they did wrong, okay?"

Anna nodded slowly. "Okay. You're right." Elsa leaned in to kiss her forehead.

Those words Elsa had just said about their parents? A year ago, Elsa wouldn't even have said them at gunpoint. Ever since she'd watched her sister throw herself in the path of an oncoming sword, the world felt so much _clearer_.

She let out a content sigh. Anna's memories were their last piece of unfinished business. Now everything was perfect.

* * *

A man was sitting at a bar. The stinky kind where all the wood is infused with dirt on a molecular level and the air smells vaguely like the beer tastes, but you stop minding after the eighth mug or so. And if you knew nothing about this person, you'd think he was merely having a friendly chat with the bartender. You don't just look at random passerby and instantly realize, "Oh, that man's every living moment is now agony and he's clinging onto the bartender's inane chatter in hopes of gleaning some sliver of information that'll bring him relief."

The bartender could best be described as large, and in the morbidly obese sense at that, but this trait was distracted from by his impressive sideburns and thick accent. "…and vhen she drank the hot chocolate, she threw a big fit and cried out 'Eeek!' like she saw a little mouse, and then she froze her cup right to this very counter." He rapped the wood with his fist to punctuate his point. "Took hours to scrape it all off. True story."

"Yes, but what set the queen off in the first place?" the man asked, gazing into the surface of his latest glass. This man was large, too, but in the more flattering "tall, broad-shouldered" sense. One might almost think him handsome if not for – or perhaps in spite of – his considerable age. The man's face held this imperceptible, drained quality, as if he'd aged decades in the span of a day.

"Beats me," shrugged the bartender, absently cleaning an old glass with a filth-encrusted cloth. "But it vasn't my service, I can promise you that. I made the chocolate piping hot like all my customers like."

"I see." The man pondered this. "Interesting…"

And with that, the bartender walked off. Now that he was alone, the man simply sat and did nothing, opting to stare into his beer and let his mind wander until all the other voices in the crowded bar sounded more like a swarm of bees than people.

He definitely wasn't expecting a tall, rail-thin man draped in a faded gray cloak to sit down in the stool beside his.

"Waitress, a drink, please!" the stranger called out to a nearby serving girl. His voice was raspy and painful to listen to, like too little butter spread over too much bread. "Extra ice."

But the man managed to ignore the newcomer. Well, at least until he was addressed by name.

"Having a good time, Adrian?"

"How do you know my name?" Adrian growled.

"Oh, I know everything about you, Adrian," said the stranger. "And I happen to like what I've heard."

"Who are you and what do you want?"

"Ooh, direct. I like that." The stranger's face was obscured by his hood's shadow, but Adrian got the impression he was smirking. "You can think of me as someone just like you. Someone who wants to see a certain young woman – one of Arendelle's royalty, perhaps – suffer and die horribly."

"You have no idea what I want."

"Yes, but I'm a pretty good guesser. Thank you, my dear." The stranger stopped to give a respectful bow to the waitress when she gave him his beverage. "And besides, I'm pretty certain what you _don't_ want. You _don't_ want to spend the rest of your days sitting around filthy pubs, getting steadily drunker, lapping up any rumors of the queen's antics like a stray dog begging for scraps."

Adrian stayed silent.

"No offense, but you mortals are so predictable. Always wanting revenge, justice, getting even, eye for an eye, whatever you wanna call it, for every little perceived slight. But what this means is that you and I have a mutual interest, Adrian. And that means I get what I want by helping you get what you want. Everyone wins! Well, except the girl. She dies." He chuckled at his own joke. "So whattaya say, pal? Are you in or are you in?"

The stranger extended a hand to shake… but it was an inhumanly thin hand, more bone than muscle, and whatever skin covered the fingers was stiff and solid black. "Whoops." He quickly retracted his arm back into the folds of his cloak, and when it reemerged it was a seemingly normal human hand, though the skin was maybe a bit too smooth and too white.

For some reason, Adrian declined the handshake.

"If this is sorcery, I want no part of it," he spat.

"But there is something you do want," said the stranger. "And I believe you need to ask yourself how far you're willing to go to get it. You might surprise yourself." He laughed again. It wasn't mocking. He sounded genuinely amused.

"Fine." Adrian's face was stone. "But if you want me to do what I think you want me to do, you'll need to find a way around the…" His eyes flitted about, checking for eavesdroppers. "…icing problem. Believe me, I'd have acted a long time ago if I thought I could overcome the queen's power."

The stranger only laughed harder at this. "Maybe you need a visual demonstration." A milky white finger reached out and lazily tipped over his mug, spilling beer all over the counter top – beer mixed with a sizable amount of ice. "You're an ice-cutter. Tell me, what do you do when the ice grows too thick?"

Adrian watched intently.

In one swift movement, the stranger sprung a sword from his robes – a strange one made of what appeared to be a dark violet crystal – and hammered it down on the table. The purple sword sent out a distortion like a heat wave that passed over the ice and left nothing in its place. The ice wasn't melted. There was no water left behind – The wave wasn't warm. The ice had simply vanished.

"It's enchanted," realized Adrian.

"Very observant," said the stranger. "Cuts through ice like a sharp knife through flesh. Works particularly well on the magically-generated variety. Consider it my gift to you." He dropped the sword on the table and slid it towards Adrian over the beer puddle.

Adrian slowly, carefully accepted the weapon, holding it in his arms and feeling the weight. Of course, the stranger slamming it like that had turned several heads, but Adrian found himself hardly caring. All he could focus on was the man in front of him.

"I still can't go through all her guards alone," he said, businesslike. "Were you planning on helping with that?"

"Oh, you don't need me to sully my hands for _that_," said the stranger, leaning back in his chair. "I have a feeling there's no shortage of like-minded citizens willing to join our little crusade. It's just that most of them lack your… leadership skills."

Adrian nodded.

"Well, that's settled, then. I trust you know what to do from here." The stranger rose to his feet to pat his new partner on the back. Adrian didn't consider himself a coward, but he still shuddered at the contact. "Adrian, I believe this is the start of a beautiful friendship."

"I'm not your friend," Adrian said stiffly.

"Ooh, I'm hurt." And with that, the stranger vanished out the door

Adrian stayed silent for several more minutes, gazing at his new blade. Then he moved to his feet, paid for the drinks, and exited the building. From there, he marched nonstop towards the very outskirts of Arendelle, where he arrived at a far more unsavory bar, stepped in, and spent the rest of his life savings buying drinks for everyone inside. Then he raised his glass high, gathering the crowd's attention, and bellowed, "How many of you hate the queen?"

Virtually every hand in the bar was raised.


	7. Elsa's Other Power

"...and I'd always wondered how I got bonked in the head with an encyclopedia set in the middle of the garden. The library makes way more sense. Heck, _everything_ makes way more sense now! Man, how did we manage to do so much stuff in just five years...?"

A horse-drawn carriage bounced through the streets of Arendelle's capital city, carrying a hyperactive princess and her sister, who was patiently allowing her ear to be talked off. It was a little hard to tell if Anna's restored memories were still making her giddy or if this was just Anna's regular, naturally-produced giddiness.

Elsa smiled and nodded, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. She'd let herself stay up ridiculously late the previous night for the sake of reminiscing with Anna about their childhood, and now Elsa was paying the price. She was on the verge of nodding off when the horses came to a halt and the driver announced they'd arrived.

"How long is this gonna take?" Anna asked as they exited the carriage.

"As long as it takes," said Elsa. "You didn't have to come, Anna. You'll probably just end up bored again."

"Yeah, well, Kristoff's not back from the trolls yet, so I was pretty much gonna be bored no matter what I did today."

Elsa had told herself restoring Anna's memories was their last piece of unfinished business, but if she wanted to get nitpicky, their current errand was technically their _real_ last piece. Royal portraits usually took a while to complete, but they didn't take _this _long. And what was really suspicious was that the court painter hadn't sent the palace any correspondence in weeks. Elsa hoped they didn't find him passed out drunk on his carpet... again.

The sisters and a couple guards walked to the painter's flat – Apparently, he also owned a mansion, but he claimed he did all his best work at his humble flat. A guard knocked, but there was no response.

"What's taking him so long?" Anna grumbled, wiping sweat from her brow. "It's scorching out here! Hottest spring ever."

"Oh, is it?" said Elsa idly. "I hadn't noticed."

Anna gave her a jealous glare. Elsa was about to do the considerate thing and blast some cold air in Anna's face, but before she had the chance, one of the guards said, "Wait, is this door frame cracked?"

His coworker stepped to the welcome mat to examine the front door himself. "Looks like forced intrusion."

"You mean like a robbery?" Anna's face lit up. "Maybe this won't be so boring after all!"

The guard pushed the door open. When he caught sight of the flat's interior, his eyes went wide. "Good lord..."

"What is it? I wanna see!" Overcome with thrill, Anna dashed inside.

"Anna, wait-" Elsa ran in after her. Luckily, she found Anna right by the front door, staring at something. Elsa met her sister's gaze, then gasped.

It looked like a typhoon had come through this house. The furniture was overturned, the walls were covered in scratch marks, and everywhere the eye could see there lay scraps of canvas and shattered picture frames.

"_Whoa_." Anna sounded equal parts amazed and horrified. "Elsa, look! _Bloodstains._"

Elsa's eyes followed Anna's to a portion of the floorboards that were noticeably more crimson than the rest of the wood. The next thing she knew, Elsa's breaths were growing shallow.

"Your Majesty-!" Her guards immediately rushed to her side.

She glanced at her sister, who looked just as upset as she did. Elsa forced herself to take some steady breaths. She was the queen. Queens don't lose their heads.

"Alert the city guard," Elsa ordered. "Make sure the proper authorities come here."

"That won't be necessary."

Everybody flinched and spun around to find a newcomer on the doorstep.

"Don't you worry your pretty little head off, Your Queeniness. I got this covered."

Into the room strolled a tall, lanky man with straight, dark hair beneath an equally tall, lanky, and dark top hat, coupled with a dark dress jacket and an odd pair of spectacles with dark, tinted lenses.

"What did you just call me?" asked a dumbfounded Elsa.

"Detective Brand of Bjorgland Yard at your service." For a second, it looked like the man was extending a hand to shake, but he was actually lighting his pipe. "And this is my crimefighting associate, Olympus-"

A big, white horse tromped inside.

"-a thoroughbred of the finest stock."

The white horse seemed to recognize the presence of royalty and bowed respectfully.

"A _horse__?_" said Anna flatly. "Your partner is a _horse__?_"

"A _highly_ _skilled_ horse," said Brand.

"What are you doing here?" asked Elsa. "Do you know anything about... about _this_?" She gestured to the carnage behind her.

"Course I do," said Brand, absently blowing a smoke ring. "I'm a private detective. Sticking my nose where it don't belong is what I do."

"Private?" frowned Elsa. "Are you saying you work independently of the authorities?"

Brand almost gagged on his smoke. "Uh, that's not important," he said quickly. "Look, I'm a pretty big deal, okay? Me and Olympus have been putting away serial killers since before you were frosting diapers, lady. You ever heard of Jill the Shredder? Adele the Dame?_ Ludvig the Lutefisk_?"

"Never heard of 'em before in my life," said Anna.

Brand was disarmed for only a second before collecting himself. "Well, uh, of course you haven't, and guess who you have to thank for that?"

"The horse?"

"_About the crime scene_," Elsa said sharply. "What do you know about this, exactly?"

"Well, I got a pretty good idea of who the culprit is, for one thing," said Brand. "All this destruction?" He pointed to some overturned furniture. "Fits his MO perfectly. He probably hit here about a week ago, judging from the bloodstains. Olympus!" His horse obediently presented its saddle, which seemed to be full of strange bundles and packages wrapped in cloth. Brand retrieved a piece of parchment and unfolded it, revealing a map of Arendelle. "We first started tracking this guy down _here_-" He pointed to the coastline on the southern tip of the kingdom. "-and he's left us a near-linear trail of corpses leading up to _here_." He traced his finger along a path towards the capital. "The killer tends to stay in one place for a while, then scrams when the locals start to notice his handiwork. And here's where it gets interesting..."

Brand glanced around like he was checking for spies, then said, "The people who've crossed this guy and lived... Well, they say he's a wight."

"A wight?" frowned Anna. "Is that some kind of phantom?"

"If a phantom is an undead creature that feeds on the living, then yes. Those who've claimed to have seen him describe the killer as a skeletal creature, his skin rotted and black." Brand leaned in towards Anna, putting on a creepy voice. "And the most that's ever been found of his victims? _Bones_. Picked clean."

"We've got a bunch of stories about phantoms and stuff in our library!" Anna sounded a bit more excited at the idea of a supernatural serial killer than she probably should have. "Like the shadow boar! It's this pig that can transform into shadows to-"

"The shadow boar's not real. That's stupid." Brand gave her a scathing look.

"_You're _stupid," grumbled Anna, folding her arms.

"I'm sure this 'wight' is nothing but a completely ordinary, everyday cannibal," said Brand. "People have a tendency to blame everything on magic. But I'm a detective – It's my job to seek the truth, and I can tell you with good authority that there's _no such thing_ as magic."

The sisters traded glances, each raising an eyebrow.

"Okay, _some_ magic exists," Brand quickly amended, "but nine times outta ten it's just people making up wild stories for things with perfectly logical explanations. Like those crazy people who say there are gnomes or something in the forests here. Well, guess what? I've scoured every inch of the woods, and there's nothing in there but _rocks_!" He threw up his hands indignantly.

Olympus shook his head and gave the sisters a look that said his associate's intellect was not indicative of his own.

"The point is, Your Queeniness, I wouldn't get all worked up about this thing being some crazy demon," said Brand. "He's just a totally ordinary murderer out for your blood."

To be honest, Elsa hadn't been taking this "monster" conversation too seriously, but at this last sentence, she snapped to alertness. "_My_ blood?"

"Well, yeah, all the signs seem to be pointing to you," shrugged Brand. "Like I said, he's been leaving a trail of corpses headed straight this way. And of the poor folk he's abducted, guess what over half of 'em have been? Young, pretty girls. They're his favorite snack."

Elsa found herself shuddering.

"And you know what day the first killing happened?" Brand continued, absently admiring his own fingernails. "The very same day your little howler in July thawed. Coincidence?"

"It could be," said Anna. "Don't you have any more proof?"

"Well... There's always _that_." Brand pointed behind them.

The sisters and guards all turned around. While the painter's flat had once been full of exquisite portraits, it was now full instead of _scraps_ of exquisite portraits. But there was exactly one painting that had been completely untouched, resting on an easel.

A beautiful portrait of Arendelle's new queen.

* * *

The carriage was halfway back to the palace by now, and thus far Elsa had been silent the entire journey.

"Man, I can't believe all those pictures got torn up. I didn't see any scraps of my portrait, but it was probably shredded, too. Ugh, I hope I don't have to pose for another one. If I have to sit still for hours again, I will _scream_."

Anna, on the other hand, had not.

"Wow, though, a real life phantom in Arendelle. Crazy, right? Do you think it's more of a ghost or more of a vampire? What if it has some kinda crazy magical powers?"

Elsa stared out the window, watching the shops and villagers fly past. "It had _better_ _not_ have magic," she finally said.

Anna noticed her expression and frowned. "I'm sure there's nothing to be scared of, Elsa. The town guard can handle whatever this thing is."

"Why did this have to happen _now_?" Elsa let out a heavy sigh. "Right when things were finally looking up..."

"Things are _still_ looking up," said Anna. "I mean, our lives are a lot better now, but that doesn't mean all the bad stuff in the world gets put on pause. Don't let this wight get under your skin, okay?"

Elsa nodded slowly. "I won't."

* * *

"Anna is dead."

This time she was eight years old, and Anna was a cold little corpse sprawled out in the middle of the ballroom. The snow covering the floor began swirling into the air, windswept. And for the first time, it dawned on Elsa that she had absolutely no control of her powers.

"Mama! Papa!"

Her parents were there instantly, but there was nothing they could do. Mama was completely shocked and disgusted, but Papa simply gave his remaining daughter a cold stare.

"This is getting out of hand." A steady arm reached for the scabbard hanging off his belt.

"Papa? Papa, what are you-?"

And the sword fell, and the snow blew even harder, and suddenly she wasn't in the ballroom but the frozen lake, and the man wielding the sword wasn't Papa and it wasn't Hans. It was a skeletal man with skin rotted and black, and then Elsa's eyes shot open and she was lying in bed, covered in tiny flecks of ice from where she'd been sweating.

Elsa buried her head in her pillow. She hadn't had that dream in years, and the wight at the end was a new addition. Elsa tried to remind herself that the dream made no sense – that her parents would have never done that to her – but when it came to dreams, those kinds of details didn't make much difference. It'd still felt real.

Look at her, getting so jumpy at the first sign of danger. Elsa was a grown woman. She was too old to be having nightmares about fantasy monsters.

Even with her eyes closed, Elsa could see sunlight streaming through the curtains into the back of her eyelids. Elsa reopened her eyes to check the old, ornate clock hanging on the wall, but at this she failed because the clock's face was obscured by a thick layer of ice. As was the rest of the clock. And the curtains. And the window. And the mirror. And the floor.

Elsa groaned. This was going to become a nightly occurrence, wasn't it? She dispelled her ice with a quick wave of her arm. That sense of wonder had diminished much more quickly than she'd hoped. Oh well, at least now she could see the time of day…

_Seven o'clock in the morning__?_ She'd slept in _way_ too late! At this revelation, Elsa practically flew out of bed. About two minutes later, Anders was let inside the bedroom by a queen with a toothbrush still in her mouth and her ice-clothing morphed into some twisted halfway-point between a dress and a nightgown.

"Your bath water's ready, Your Majesty," announced Anders, bowing low. "This time we opted to fill the tub with liquid nitrogen. I hope it's not too hot for you."

Luckily, his remark went right over Elsa's head in her hurry. "Anders, perfect, we have lots to do today. Our chief priority should be strengthening the number of guards. Next, I want scouts planted all over the village and at the borders of the kingdom. If they hear anything unusual, I'm to know about it immediately. And… oh, yes, I'll need a personal bodyguard to follow me at all times."

Anders's bushy eyebrows had crawled up his forehead like a pair of white caterpillars. "Your Majesty, it sounds like you're expecting an attack! What's going on? Did Weaseltown declare war?"

"No, no, it's nothing like that." Her energy all but vanished. Elsa hung her head, failing to meet his eyes. "It's just... after what happened to the court painter..."

"Oh." At this, Anders seemed to ease up quite a bit. "Another mysterious disappearance, I take it? Yes, villagers have been going missing for months. Mostly teenage girls, from what I'm hearing. Probably just eloping or trying to scare their parents or whatever kids are doing these days."

But then he caught sight of Elsa's face, which was decidedly less calm than his own. "I assure you, it's nothing to worry about, Your Majesty," he said soothingly. "Even if there _is_ some sort of kidnapping ring, the town guard will get to the bottom of it, and at any rate, you and Anna are perfectly safe. Arendelle castle employs only the highest caliber guards. Remind me to tell you the story of the assassination attempt on your grandfather one day. It's really quite-"

"This is different, Anders!" snapped Elsa. "There were bloodstains. The painter's house looked like it'd been torn up by-" She paused before reluctantly saying, "...by a monster."

At this, Anders snorted. "Let me guess – the wight?" He wiggled his fingers to illustrate how "spooky" the word was. "There have been sightings of that thing since I was a little boy. All due respect, Your Majesty, but you're a bit old to be believing in ghost stories."

Elsa's brow creased. "I'm not saying it's definitely a monster. It could just be some depraved serial killer. But- But what if it _is _a monster? What if my magic attracted it here somehow? All I want is to err on the side of caution, and I'm sick of everyone treating this like a joke. The way Anna talks about it, you'd think the wight's a bad guy from one of her _Nansina Drude _books! It can't hurt to be careful, can it?"

When she caught sight of Anders's face, Elsa actually flinched. "Oh, yes, when has paranoia ever hurt anyone in _this_ household?"

Elsa's stomach promptly did a backflip. "W-What did you just say to m-?"

But before she could even finish, Anders was gone, and she was left staring at the doorway. Elsa stood alone in her room for a minute, her chest rising and falling.

She felt so weird. Elsa wasn't used to her cheeks getting hot.

* * *

Today, Elsa's bath lasted only a few minutes. It was not, in fact, in liquid nitrogen, but plain, lukewarm water, though by the time the maid drained it, it was pretty frigid. Despite her best efforts, Elsa was half an hour late to the council meeting.

Apparently, the councilmen had spent the entire time sitting in terrified silence.

When it became clear they weren't about to speak until spoken to, Elsa somewhat breathlessly got out, "I apologize for my tardiness. Let's begin."

"…Yes," said the former head of council, his eyes following Elsa as she once again performed her throne-making trick. "We'd planned to spend today's session discussing the issue of trade with Weaseltown-"

"There _is_ no issue," Elsa cut in, her voice tightening. "We're having nothing to do with that nation ever again."

"Did I say Weaseltown?" squeaked the councilman. "My mistake! I meant, um…" He frantically leafed through his papers for a less offensive subject. "The drought! Yes, we'd planned on discussing the drought."

"Drought?" This sparked Elsa's interest – it was the first she'd heard of any drought.

The ex-head turned to another councilman. "The Royal Head of Agriculture can explain it best."

The Head of Agriculture was a thin, middle-aged man with a pair of well-polished spectacles. He was one of the few men in the room who didn't flinch every time Elsa made a sudden movement. The man gave her a dry, academic look as if she was just another textbook to memorize.

"Following the, err, events of your coronation," he began, absently fiddling with his glasses, "the country experienced one of the hottest summers on record, thereby creating a drought that's lasted well into March and taken a sizable chunk out of Arendelle's crop production. This has forced us to drastically increase trade with our neighboring countries and skyrocketed the price of food, in part because one of our major potential trading partners was, err, spontaneously boycotted."

"There has to be an answer besides _Weaseltown_." Just saying the name made Elsa's stomach churn. "You're my advisors. Any advice?"

The councilmen stayed silent at first. Then one of the younger ones raised his hand.

"Um, if the kingdom is too hot for crops to grow, m'lady, couldn't you, err…" He wasn't brave enough to finish articulating the concept, so instead he just wiggled his arms and made an accompanying "Swoosh!" sound effect with his mouth.

The councilman shrank under Elsa's glare. "You know, it's okay to talk about my powers. You don't need to use euphemisms."

"Yes, of course, I meant no disrespect, my queen!" the man yelped. "It's just that last meeting, you reacted so poorly to my plan to double the size of Arendelle-"

"_I'm not replacing the military with snowmen__!_"

"Can we _please_ not start this again?" spoke up the ex-council leader. "My queen, I believe my fellow councilman was trying to ask if you are capable of magically ending the kingdom's drought."

"Oh. I, well, I-" Elsa spluttered, put on the spot. "-I don't know. I really don't understand what exactly I'm capable of, so until I do I'd rather not make any more large-scale changes."

Really, you'd think after two decades, Elsa would have a clearer grasp on the specifics of her powers, but then, she'd spent a good chunk of that time desperately trying _not_ to use her magic. If you went back ten months ago and asked her what she could do, Elsa probably wouldn't have included "dress making" and "animating snowmen" on the list.

"So if you can't fix this with magic, what _can_ you do about it?" asked the Head of Agriculture, breaking Elsa from her thoughts. "You are, if I recall, expecting aid to come to the people of Arendelle much more quickly now that only _you_ are in charge of the decision making."

Every eye fell on her. The councilmen knew a challenge when they heard one. Elsa shrank in her icy seat.

* * *

Taxes. Elsa ended up raising taxes to offset the cost of the extra trading. Taxes. Not even on the throne for a year and she was raising _taxes._ Any citizens who didn't hate her before were definitely going to _now._ (In fact, the taxation ended up being a much bigger hit to Elsa's reputation than the eternal winter could ever hope to be. That's politics for you.)

Elsa spent the time after the meeting trudging down the castle halls and feeling terrible about herself. Somehow, without her brain actually telling them to, Elsa's feet carried her to Anna's bedroom, where she found the door wide open, the covers overturned, and the bed vacant.

_Anna's awake_, she realized. It occurred to Elsa that she didn't actually want to be queen at all. What Elsa really wanted was to play with her sister. Elsa was, after all, like all adults, really just a little kid trapped in an adult body who occasionally felt obligated to pretend to be a grown-up.

* * *

"Do you want to build a snowman?"

"Yeah! Oh, wait." The face of a silvery-haired toddler fell. "All the snow's melted."

"You big dummy!" laughed her red-haired little sister, who as always was vibrating in place from the perpetual sugar high of being a four year old girl. "You can make it snow whenever you want! If _I_ had awesome ice powers, I'd build a snowman _every day_, even during the warm months like summer or Monday."

"But… I've never made it snow before. Can I do it in the house? Will Mama and Papa get angry…?"

A mischievous grin spread across the younger sibling's face – the one that usually signaled she was about to get another one of those scrapes or bruises she was so proud of. "They won't if we don't get caught."

Anna remembered how that hesitant expression had crossed Elsa's face as she formed the snow crystal in her palm. And how it was replaced by one of absolute wonder as the snowflake exploded, scattering its pieces all around the ballroom and falling gently to the ground.

Elsa's first snowfall.

And then the memories splintered and Anna found herself remembering smaller bits and pieces of everything at some same time. So much information, all rushing into her head at once, yet no less vivid. It felt like it'd happened yesterday.

"Wheee! Make as much snow as you can!"

"Snowball fight!"

"_Do you wanna build a snoooooowmaaaaaan__?_"

"You can do it, too? Wow, that's amazing! Just wait 'til I tell Elsa!"

"Ugh, you can learn your times tables _later_, Elsa! I wanna play snow-pillars!"

And just like that, in another blink of an eye, Anna was aware she was lying in bed with her eyes shut. She'd hadn't been dreaming, exactly – It'd felt more like a mish-mash of her restored memories parading through her noggin – but she'd definitely been asleep. She could tell by the mixture of hair and drool in her mouth.

Anna reluctantly opened her eyes to check the dusty old clock hanging crookedly on her wall.

_One-thirty in the evening__?_ She'd woken up _way_ too early! Anna pulled herself back under the covers.

But then Anna remembered a crazy detective had told Elsa a wight was gonna kill her, which meant Elsa was probably freaking out and needed her awesome sister to come to her aid. Anna rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and flopped out from under the covers.

She purposefully ignored the mirror by her bed stand. After waking, the top of Anna's head had more in common with a bird's nest than a princess' hair, and laying eyes on that monstrosity would be like a reminder that she ought to actually do something about it. Instead, Anna wisely opted to roam around the castle in her pajamas without doing a thing to her appearance.

Anna made a bee-line for her sister's room across the hall, but nobody was in there but Gerda. The portly woman was collecting dirty laundry, or at least attempting to – Elsa's laundry basket had remained distressingly empty ever since her switch from regular to ice clothing.

"Hey, Gerda," said Anna. "Have you seen Elsa around?"

"The queen is busy in a meeting with her advisors." Gerda gave Anna a stern look. "And I don't want to see her disturbed until it's over."

"Now why would you just _assume_ I'd disturb her?" Anna said with practiced innocence. "Anywho, if she's busy, I guess I'll go grab some breakfast-"

"Not looking like _that_, you're not!" Anna tried to escape, but Gerda caught her arm in a vice grip. "If you want the gates open, you need to look presentable in public."

Anna protested by making the kind of guttural honking noise a princess should never, ever make, but it was futile. She ended up getting dragged into the bathtub and having her hair soaked.

"Cold! Cold! Cold!" Anna yelped, wriggling her limbs like a caged animal.

"Sorry! Queen Elsa prefers the water this way, and I just got in the habit-"

"Well, next time Elsa bathes, tell her she's _crazy_ and make her take a bath like a _sane person__!_"

Several minutes later, Anna stood in front of one of the paintings in the castle gallery. Her stomach was full of food, her hair was beautiful, she had on an exquisite dress, and she was entirely one hundred percent grumpy.

"…and Kristoff's still not back from visiting the trolls, and Olaf went into town to explore again, so now I'm left all by myself. Didn't think I'd have to resort to talking to _you_ again after finally reconnecting with Elsa."

Anna was speaking to a portrait of a little girl, probably around three, hugging a puppy, and the poor dog looked absolutely miserable. Anna only talked to this one when she was in a _really_ bad mood.

"Uh huh, uh huh," Anna nodded, pausing politely to give the picture time to reply. "I know, right?"

But right at that moment, as if in answer to Anna's prayers, the gallery doors flew open.

"I thought I'd find you here," grinned Anna's big sister. "The meeting was horrible and boring. Want to go do something fun?"

"Oh heck yes, I want to do something fun!" Anna returned the smile, running up to her. "What did you have in mind?"

"I was in the mood to experiment around with my powers," said Elsa. "Think you could help me come up with some creative ideas?"

"Oh, you just made my day! Let's go!"

The girls were about to skip out of the room, overflowing with glee, but their paths were blocked by yet another lame grown-up.

"My queen," said the guy, bowing.

"Admiral?" frowned Elsa. She seemed to recognize him, but personally Anna never bothered remembering the obscure staff members. "To what do I owe this pleasure?"

"I have your personal bodyguard ready," said the Admiral. "Anders told me you gave this top priority."

"That's right," nodded Elsa. "Bring him in, then."

Anna snorted impatiently through her nose.

* * *

When the Admiral told Fritz he'd gotten the job, he'd almost thought there'd been a mistake. Good things simply didn't come to Fritz Herman Gudmund, and a lot had been riding on him getting hired by the palace, which Fritz had taken as a sign it wasn't going to happen. He'd been fired from every job from cheesemongering to reindeer herding, and his momma had been dropping hints for a while now that she wouldn't exactly be feeling empty nest syndrome once she kicked him out, so Fritz had been pretty disarmed by the arrival of actual good news. That sense of unreality had stayed with Fritz all throughout packing up his things, all throughout telling his momma goodbye, and all throughout his journey towards Arendelle castle.

In fact, come to think of it, he was still in a daze right this very minute.

It wasn't like the odds had been stacked in Fritz's favor, either. He'd only applied for the bodyguard position in the first place when it'd become painfully apparent that an education wasn't in the cards for him. And reindeer herding was completely out of the question – Fritz was _terrified_ of reindeer. Fritz had been forced to find a job that played to his strengths, and those strengths happened to be the ability to sit very still and act polite.

At first, Fritz had been disheartened by the fact that the castle had hardly let in any new staff members in over a decade – which, in retrospect, Fritz realized, probably had something to do with those ice powers the queen apparently had – but at least that'd put Fritz at the top of a short list.

It occurred to Fritz that he had no idea what the queen looked like. Before the eternal winter, she hadn't exactly been a public figure, and Fritz had missed her coronation under the assumption that it'd be really, really boring. From what Fritz understood, Queen Elsa had ice powers, and during her coronation she got really bad stage fright or something and then she flipped out and froze the whole country like a total spaz, earning her the moniker "Snow Queen."

That name gave Fritz the mental image of a much older lady, possibly draped in animal furs or covered in spiky icicles with maybe a polar bear-driven sleigh. And knowing his luck, she was probably one of those crazy malefic sorceresses who went through minions like a glutton through meals, and the instant Fritz made the slightest mistake, she would scream, "You fool! You have failed me!" and then freeze him to death.

Fritz tensed as the Admiral called him into the gallery, where the royal sisters were waiting. He was expecting the worst, which was historically always the case in the life Fritz lead. The queen would no doubt have a crooked face, a pointed nose, a cold, uncaring gleam in her eye… In short, completely and utterly-

The door swung open.

-_gorgeous_.

Silvery blond hair. Fair skin. Skin. Skin! Shoulders, just… shoulders. Lips. Eyelashes. A dress that showed off a leg. A _bare_ leg! Fritz didn't think he'd even _seen_ a bare female limb before (His momma had somewhat sheltered him). And then Fritz's eyes detected her hips and his brain short-circuited.

"Is he alright?" frowned the queen. "He looks sick."

"Gudmund's never been inside a palace before," said the Admiral. "He's taking in a lot of unfamiliar sights for the first time."

_Is this allowed?_ Fritz thought wildly. _Are queens _allowed_ to look like this? Oh God you're staring. Move your eyes, man! Quick, before she realizes! _But Fritz's eyes weren't being very cooperative.

"He may not be the most physically imposing," said the Admiral, a note of apology in his voice (Fritz considered himself less "muscular" and more "thin as a flagpole"), "but I assure you, Mr. Gudmund is more than qualified for the job. Isn't that right, boy?" He turned to Fritz expectantly.

Fritz slowly opened his mouth. It felt very dry. After a moment, he managed to get out, "It's- It's an honor to serve you, m'lady." He bowed low, praying the queen wouldn't reply with something like "Sorry, I'd prefer a bodyguard who isn't a lecherous pervert," or "My eyes are up here."

But instead, the queen simply said, "Pleasure to meet you," and then her attention moved away from her bodyguard and never returned.

It took a few minutes after the Admiral left for Fritz to realize the princess was also in the room. She was kind of good looking, too, he guessed.

The sisters ignored him and talked amongst each other, although honestly Fritz didn't catch a word they said. Every time the queen's lips moved, they kind of enraptured his entire attention span. Fritz found himself picturing them saying things like, "_Oooh Fritz, having these terrible ice powers is sooooo hard on me. I'm glad I have a big strong man __to __support me__!_"

The princess was dating that commoner with the reindeer, wasn't she? It could happen!

At some point, the royal sisters exited the gallery and made for the queen's study. They didn't really acknowledge his existence in any way, shape, or form, but Fritz figured the girls meant for him to follow them.

As the three of them moved down the hallway, the queen gliding gracefully, the princess skipping childishly, and Fritz trailing behind anxiously, it occurred to him that, given he was supposed to be Queen Elsa's twenty-four-seven bodyguard and all, this uncomfortable way he was feeling was the state Fritz would _always_ be in for the rest of his life forever. Fritz wasn't sure if this was a blessing or a curse. He'd be hovering over the queen at mealtimes, watching her as she slept, sitting outside her door as she bathed-

_Clean thoughts_, Fritz chanted to himself. _Clean thoughts, Fritz._

When they finally reached the study, the queen halted Fritz at the entrance. "Wait outside," she ordered. "My sister and I would like some privacy."

Fritz was flustered by the centerpiece of his new religion directly addressing him, but he managed to say, "Yes, of course, my queen. Can I ask for how long?"

"Shouldn't be more than an hour."

"We're experimenting!" added the princess, shooting her sister a sly look. The duo vanished behind the door, which clicked locked.

_Clean thoughts_, repeated Fritz.

Then, from behind the door, he heard a _squelch_ sound, then giggling, and a voice saying, "Elsa, what's gotten into you? That's cold!"

_Clean thoughts_.

Of course, Fritz was eventually given a break from guard duty, and despite his mild nature, he was pretty talkative once he had a few drinks in him. Which meant by the following Monday, every resident of Arendelle and their mother knew about the queen's "relationship" with her sister.


	8. Good Dreams, Bad Dreams

For the record, Elsa had just thrown a snowball at her sister. It was a completely innocuous situation.

Elsa had claimed she wanted Anna's help experimenting with her magic due to Annaa's creativity, but there was another, unspoken reason – namely, that the two of them had stayed up late the previous night gushing about their childhoods, and now Elsa wanted to relive those experiences.

And Anna certainly didn't fail to deliver. Her first suggestion for an "experiment" was to see how much snow Elsa could create all at once. Elsa had pointed out that she had covered the entire country in snow, so filling up the whole study up to the ceiling would be like nothing to her. And then both girls' eyes lit up and a few seconds later every inch of what had once been empty space was now occupied by fluffy whiteness. Elsa unfroze the giant cube of snow a minute later, and as per usual nothing in the snow's wake was so much as damp.

(Of course, from outside, all Fritz heard was the sound of furniture banging around and then the queen's voice asking, "Are you wet?" Fritz started to press his ear to the wood, but he had to stop when other passing staff members gave him funny looks.)

The sisters' experimenting was then sidetracked via an impromptu snowball fight, but eventually they got back on track when Anna asked to see how many varieties of ice-clothing Elsa could conjure up. This led to the creation of a long string of unique ice-shoes, ice-skirts, and so forth, all topped off with Anna's animated reaction when Elsa briefly put an ice-dress on _her_. She flailed around the room hollering, "Cold! Cold! Take the dress off! Take it off!"

(Outside the door, Fritz adjusted his collar. Was it just him or was this uniform too tight?)

The whole ordeal culminated in Anna wearing an icy recreation of a certain prince's dress jacket so she could run around saying, "Ooh, look at me, I've got giant sideburns on my head because I'm overcompensating, and my twelve brothers are probably spanking me _so_ hard right now!"

(Back outside, Fritz raised an eyebrow.)

Eventually all the zaniness settled down and Elsa seated herself over at her writing desk to explore the more _subtle_ nuances of her magic.

"Well, that was, um, highly informative," Elsa said once Anna's uncontrollable laughter finally ceased. "But I've got one more trick I've been meaning to try." With a small flourish of her hands, Elsa conjured up an ice crystal in her palm. Then, by concentrating, she caused it to slowly, gradually morph into snow. The crystal lost its shape and fell into a heap on the table. Elsa concentrated harder on the snow pile, even straining her forehead muscles – as if that had anything to do with using magic – but the snow remained snow.

Elsa sighed. "I was really hoping that would work."

"Hoping what would work?"

"I was trying to make water." Elsa bowed her head in defeat. "Ever since I was little, I've always thought drenching everyone I touch would be a step up from freezing them to death."

"Elsa, you know you don't do that anymore." Anna took hold of her hand to illustrate the point.

"Still… Ugh, it doesn't make sense!" Elsa escaped Anna's grip. "I can make ice and snow and even snow clouds like Olaf's flurry. Why can't I make _water__?_"

"It's magic – It doesn't have to make sense," shrugged Anna. "I mean, why did I have to get my memories wiped to stop my head from freezing? That's just the way it works."

"I guess you're right," said Elsa. "Looks like my magic is only ever cold…"

Anna's eyes suddenly lit up again, signaling another idea taking hold in her mind. "Ooh, y'know what? Conjure up another snowball. I wanna try something."

Elsa complied, but she gave her sister a quizzical look.

"Check out what I found while we were horsing around!" Anna held up a small, wooden, boxlike object proudly. "Matches! They were in one of your desk drawers. Didn't this desk used to belong to Dad? These were probably his for when he smoked." She made a "yuck" face at the memory.

"Wait," realized Elsa, "you're not going to-?" But one of the matchsticks was out of the box and lit before she could even finish. Elsa's eyes fell on the flames. Her entire body tensed.

"See, you said you can't make water." Anna swiped the snowball from Elsa's hand and held it under the flame. "But then I remembered how Olaf started melting back when he saved me from Hans and I realized, duh, you totally _can_ make water-" As she spoke, the snowball began changing into a puddle and dripping onto the desk. "-you just have to let yourself get warm."

"You've proved your point." Elsa wiped a bead of sweat from her brow. "Now put the fire out." Anna absently swished the match around with her fingers, and each time Elsa's eyes followed the burning tip's movements exactly.

"See, that's probably why you can't make water," said Anna. "Every time you start to get warm, you flip out about it."

"Put the fire out."

Anna rolled her eyes. "Come on, you put out a whole forest fire once. One teeny little matchhead won't hurt you. See?"

It was at this point Anna made the mistake of moving the flame closer to Elsa's face.

* * *

On the other side of the door, Fritz heard the queen's voice scream, "_I said put it out__!_" followed by the sounds of the princess's far less coherent shrieks. Oh, that was _it._ He didn't care if it got him fired – Fritz was seeing what the heck was going on in there. He tried to turn the doorknob, but it was locked tight.

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to-" came a frantic voice from behind the door.

"_I can't feel my fingers__!_" came another, far more frantic one.

This startled Fritz enough that he made an effort the break the door down. Said effort ended with Fritz on the floor nursing an injured shoulder.

Just as he returned to his feet, the door swung itself open and Fritz found himself face-to-face with the object of his deepest desires. It was almost enough to send Fritz back to the floor.

"Fetch hot water!" the queen ordered. "Quickly!"

Fritz scampered off, but he was new to the castle, so it probably took him several minutes longer than the queen would have liked to finally return to the study with a steaming bucket.

"I'm here! I'm here! What's going on?" Fritz panted out, his voice reaching a pitch only attainable by the rare throat of a seventeen-year-old boy who hasn't gone through puberty yet.

Queen Elsa ignored him and immediately grabbed her sister's hand to dunk it in the water.

In a futile attempt to understand what the heck was going on, Fritz glanced around the room. His eyes fell on a small matchbox and a handful of accompanying matches, all covered in ice and scattered across the floor.

The queen turned to her sister. "Can you move your fingers?"

"Elsa, I'm fine, you just startled me-"

"We need to get you to a doctor! Ugh, I'm such an idiot, this is all my-"

"_It-was-not-your-fault-and-I-am-totally-fine_!" the princess said through gritted teeth. She wiggled all the fingers of her afflicted hand, almost defiantly.

"But-"

"Trust me, I know what getting my heart frozen feels like. You just nipped my fingers."

Granted he hadn't known her for very long, but Fritz had never seen the queen lose her composure like this. Frankly, he wanted to give her a hug, but something told him that would be a bad idea.

The queen seemed on the verge of tears, her lips trembling. "I'm sor-"

"_Don't apologize,_" sighed the princess. "This was my fault, Elsa. You clearly have some kind of phobia of heat, and I just shoved some into your face like a complete jerk."

The queen hesitated before saying, "Alright, I... I'm glad you're not hurt."

After that, the sisters hugged and tried to calm each other down, and then the queen announced she was turning in early for the night and trudged out of the room. This left the princess alone with Fritz.

"Excuse me, Your Highness," he said, "but is it always this, err, dramatic around here?"

"Actually, I'd say anything that doesn't end with Arendelle trapped in eternal winter is pretty calm for Elsa."

Fritz gulped. He was beginning to wonder what he had gotten himself into. Really, he knew he ought to follow after the queen, what with him being her bodyguard and all, but Fritz felt he needed a minute to compose himself.

"I know all about your little crush, by the way," the princess suddenly said, shooting him a knowing smirk.

Aaaaaaand there went Fritz's composure.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" he got out, his voice going all squeaky.

"Oh come on, it's written all over your face!" The princess pointed a finger at the offending face, every inch of which was currently bright crimson. "Look, it's cute and all, and I hate to disappoint you, but I already have a boyfriend. Sorry, that's the way it goes."

And with that, the princess skipped out the door.

Fritz stared at her as she left. He shook his head slowly, his face meeting his palm.

After that, Fritz went to go find the queen. On his way to her bedroom, he happened to run into the Admiral again – a tall, broad-shouldered man whose judgmental stare asked, "Aren't you supposed to be guarding the queen?" without his mouth having to say anything.

"Oh, A-A-Admiral!" squeaked Fritz, adjusting the buttons on his uniform. "The queen is, err, just going to bed. I've been meaning to ask you, does she get a separate bodyguard for night shifts or…?"

"Haven't gotten around to hiring one yet," said the Admiral. "But we can't leave the queen unprotected all night, now can we? You'll just have to keep at it for the next few days." He gave Fritz a pat on the back, managing to hit the exact part of Fritz's shoulder that was bruised.

"Buh-But-But when do _I_ get to sleep?"

"I'm sure you'll work something out." And with that, the Admiral disappeared down the hall, leaving Fritz alone once again.

Fritz fumed internally all the way up the stairs to the royal bedchambers, where he opened the queen's door a crack to find her already sound asleep. A beam of lamplight illuminated the still form of the queen, halfway under her quilts and adorned in a nightgown of the same color and texture as her usual dress.

It matched her dress? Holy moly, that was adorable. Fritz was tempted to continue staring at the sleeping girl before him, but even Fritz could tell that would be crossing way over the thin line between "endearing crush" and "skeevy stalker." Reluctantly, he closed the door back.

Now Fritz was subjected to the new and exciting experience of staying up past his bedtime in a totally silent, vacant hallway for hours on end.

An assassin could come for her at any moment, Fritz tried to convince himself. Even though rationally, he knew this was true, after ten minutes with no murder attempt, his brain was having trouble buying it. Not that Fritz knew it'd been ten minutes, of course. There was no clock in his range of vision, so for all he knew he could've been standing there for ten hours. And even if there had been one, knowing the time probably would've just made this even more maddening.

Shockingly enough, Fritz's thoughts drifted back towards the queen, specifically her aesthetics. Despite those aesthetics now occupying the brunt of his every thought, Fritz wasn't sure he _lusted_ after Queen Elsa, exactly, in the same way an art lover doesn't exactly want to smear their grubby finger prints all over the Mona Lisa. Besides, he figured, it would probably be too cold to-

_Stop thinking about _that, scolded the tiny, logical part of Fritz's brain. _It's never going to happen_.

Great. So now not only did Fritz have to stay up all night on the lookout for nonexistent assassins, he had to go the entire night without thinking about _that._ If Momma only knew what had been going through her boy's head, she would be _so_ ashamed.

_Fine, fine, _Fritz told himself,_ think about something else. Anything else_. _Just... whatever you do, don't… fall… a__s__lee…_

The bedroom door creaked open, and out crept a gorgeous woman with creamy skin and hair like silver.

"Ohhh, Fritz," she cooed, wrapping her arms around him. "I can't believe I never noticed you before. You're so much more attractive than my sister."

"Yeah. I am…"

"Just look at us," giggled Elsa. "All alone in this dark hallway… just the two of us… Nobody else around…" She leaned in to whisper in his ear. "_We could do anything we want_…"

"Yeah…"

"We could even… sing a romantic duet!"

"Yaaaay!"

All of a sudden, the two of them were atop the castle's clock tower, dancing the robot and singing in unison:

"_Our mental synchronization,_

_Can have but one explanation._"

"_You_-"

"_And_ _I_-"

"_Were_-"

"_Just_-"

"_Meant to_-"

"_I killed her, I killed her_-!"

Fritz's eyes shot open. He was back, alone, in the bedchambers hallway, slumped against the wall. Well, that sure had been a spooky dream, but like his momma always said, dreams weren't real, so they couldn't hurt-

"_I killed her, I'm burning, she's dead-_!"

_That_ dispelled Fritz's grogginess.

"Queen Elsa, are you okay-?" Fritz flung open the bedroom door and was greeted by a bolt of magic whizzing by his ear. It struck the far wall behind him, freezing the wallpaper in a thick blanket of ice.

That could have been his face.

This was Fritz's first encounter with the queen's magic, he realized. In all honesty, he'd almost forgotten she even _had_ ice powers, since in his eyes that was, err, not her most notable feature. Though he was ashamed to admit it to himself, Fritz was half-considering fleeing in terror and finding someone braver, but then he risked another peek in the doorway. The same facial features he had grown infatuated with were now contorted by fear into horrible mockeries of themselves. Her eyes were shut tight, but you could still practically see the pain behind them, and on top of all that the queen was spasming uncontrollably, coating random sections of her bedroom with glacier-thick ice. It struck Fritz for the first time just how insanely young the new queen was.

Fritz took a deep breath and charged inside.

It felt like he'd just stepped into the North Pole. The poor boy made a mental note that so long as he was the queen's bodyguard, he ought to dress in heavier clothing, and then he skidded clumsily over the skating rink of a floor towards the queen's bed.

"_She's dead, I'm burning_…" the queen repeated, quieter this time. Fritz swore he could hear her heart thumping in her chest.

There were vapors fuming off her skin like it was dry ice.

_Here goes nothing._ Fritz exhaled through his nose, then grabbed the queen by the shoulders to give her a good shake.

"Queen Elsa? Queen Elsa, you have to wake-"

His hands were on fire. This is how Fritz made the discovery that, if it's cold enough, ice can burn just as badly as flames. In fact, it was actually his howls of pain that finally woke the queen from her spell.

To her credit, the queen managed to deduce what was going on almost as soon as she opened her eyes, and every last speck of ice in the room vanished shortly afterward. She took another several minutes to sit up in bed and wait for her breathing to slow.

When he judged her calm enough to speak, Fritz asked, "Your Majesty, are you alright?"

"Are _you_ alright?" The queen gave Fritz a look that was equal parts concerned and horrified. "I didn't…?"

"No, no, I'm fine," said a flustered Fritz. "And, I mean, it's my job, so even if I wasn't, I knew the risks when I…"

"What happened?" the queen asked, her voice a whisper.

"You were screaming in your sleep, and you started shooting ice everywhere. And you were, um, spasming a lot, too."

She stared at her own palms. "I… I had no idea. If I had known I was… Well, at any rate, I am so, _so_ sorry for what I just put you through-"

"Don't worry about _me_ – _You're_ the one who should be…" began Fritz, flustered once again. "Um, I know what I'll do. If you think you can sit tight for a minute, I'll go get a physician to-" As he spoke, Fritz headed for the door, but he flinched quite spectacularly when the frame suddenly found itself sealed by a wall of ice.

"_No_." Fritz spun around to find the queen scowling at him. "You tell _no one_ about this. Understand?"

Fritz nodded pitifully.

"Good. I'm going to try and go back to sleep. I'll deal with this in the morning when I'm not half-awake." Elsa buried herself beneath the covers before adding, "Stay by my bedside and wake me immediately if it starts to happen again."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

Not another word was exchanged between the two the entire rest of the night.

It occurred to Fritz that Elsa hadn't dispelled the ice over the doorway, meaning he was basically trapped in here until she decided to let him out, and she'd already fallen back asleep. About two seconds after this realization, Fritz also realized that he really, _really_ needed to use the restroom.

Fritz stood in agonized silence, watching the queen's chest rise and fall much more steadily than before. It occurred to him that from the moment he'd laid eyes on her, Queen Elsa had been the most beautiful thing Fritz had ever seen. And now she was also the most terrifying.


	9. Weakness

The nightmares hadn't come again, but that didn't mean Elsa had pleasant dreams. She could feel them lurking at the edges of her consciousness, biding their time, waiting until she was again vulnerable enough to _Anna is dead you killed her everything is burning_.

It had seeped in for less than a second before she opened her eyes, transporting Elsa back to her own bed, the covers wrapped around her tightly as a straightjacket. After untangling herself, Elsa sat up and reached for her bedside table. Force of habit was telling her to put on gloves.

Oh, right, she didn't wear those anymore. Throwing the stupid things away had felt incredibly good in the moment, but now for the first time, Elsa asked herself if she'd really made the wisest choice. The events of the previous night forced their way through her head.

Well, it probably didn't matter either way. Elsa had long suspected the gloves were a placebo. After all, she'd only been eight, and her parents had grown pretty desperate to appease her. Besides, Elsa had overpowered those shackles Hans had cuffed her in, and those were much thicker than the flimsy gloves.

Elsa was wrenched from her thoughts by the sudden awareness of eyes boring into the back of her neck. She spun around, heart racing, but it was just that new bodyguard whose name escaped her.

The boy winced at the sudden movement. He was a scrawny little boy, barely seventeen by the looks of him, tucked inside an ill-fitting emerald uniform of the royal guards. Kind of a plain face topped with boring brown hair, though his head was a little on the lumpy side, so that was pretty distinct. Teenage boys were a foreign species to Elsa, what with being locked in her bedroom for a decade and all, but she got the impression Anna had lucked out with Kristoff as far as looks went.

Of course, Elsa wasn't one to talk. She wasn't exactly thrilled to expose some stranger to her post-waking self, who sported messy hair, un-brushed teeth, completely absent makeup, and a thin layer of frozen sweat.

(She was being hard on herself. As far as Fritz was concerned, any Elsa was good Elsa.)

"Guh-Good morning, my queen," squeaked the boy, bowing low. The poor thing was clearly terrified of her, and who could blame him? She had nearly frozen him to death last night. "No more incidents during the night. I don't suppose I could ask you to, err, clear the doorway, please?" He gestured towards the open door frame, which was still obstructed by a sheet of thick ice.

Ugh, had she left that there all night? Elsa hurriedly unfroze the wall, which also handily erased the puddle on the carpet from where it had been melting. And then while she was at it, Elsa thawed her frozen sweat because, seriously, _eww_.

"_Thank you Your Majesty thank you thank you thank you_!" The boy sprinted out the door the instant it was cleared, but a minute later he poked his head back through the frame to ask, "Which way is the men's room? I'm, uh, I'm new around here."

Elsa patiently directed him, then slinked out of bed and into her personal washroom. She couldn't say she was quite as happy as she'd been the time she'd brushed her teeth three days ago. Frankly, she was embarrassed – embarrassed she'd nearly hurt someone _twice_ yesterday and embarrassed she'd had a night terror. Had she had been having those _every_ night she'd a nightmare? She _had_ awoken to a frozen bedroom each time, and she'd been shooting off ice during _this_ episode…

And the worst part was she'd actually let herself think she was in control of her powers! How could she keep telling herself that when she was freezing things in her sleep and every time she got too warm she completely-?

_Oh God. The fire._ It was dancing in front of her eyes right now, a little glowing flicker of heat waiting to inflict _burning and smoke and dead sisters and_-

The sink was overflowing. The splatter of water was enough to bring Elsa back to reality, where she hurriedly fiddled with the sink handle.

_Get a hold of yourself_. It was just the gas lamp. Just the gas lamp.

Elsa drained the sink, then shook her head at the considerable puddle on the floor. She'd have to get that-boy-whose-name-escaped-her to mop up once he got back (At some point, Elsa forgot he was her bodyguard and started treating him like her personal servant, and it's not like Fritz would ever object, bless his heart).

By the time her bodyguard returned, Elsa was looking far more presentable – ice-clothing back into dress form, eye-shadow back in its proper place on her eyelids, her hair back in that… over-the-shoulder braid thingy she had going on.

(Fritz had tried to look his best, too, brushing his hair straight and rinsing out his mouth, but really, he was rearranging deck chairs on a sinking ship.)

The words "_YoulooklovelytodayQueenElsa_" clawed their way out of the boy's mouth before he could stop them, but Elsa wasn't really listening. She was too busy thinking, _Don't mention last night, don't mention last night, don't_-

"So about last night," said the boy. "You don't want me to tell anyone? Not even your sister?"

"_Especially_ not my sister. There's nothing she can do about it. It would just cause undue worry."

"I understand, Your Majesty."

"And- And besides," Elsa added, more to herself than to him, "I don't want to be seen as weak." She immediately regretted saying it aloud, but the boy simply nodded and didn't press the issue.

Next came a fun interlude where Elsa had to explain why he needed to mop up by the washroom sink ("The faucet was stuck!"), which he did without complaint. Then came a knock at the door, which the boy opened for her.

Anders's gut reaction was to shoot the boy his patented "Why is a teenage boy in the queen's bedroom?" death glare, but then he realized it was just the bodyguard and eased up. Slightly.

"Bathwater's ready," Anders announced. "And I hope your bodyguard has been to your liking, Your Majesty?"

"He's fine," said Elsa (This nod to his existence was enough to make Fritz's heart do cartwheels). "What about the other tasks I gave you?"

"No reports of any monsters," said Anders. "Well, actually, there have been sightings of a giant, white beast roaming the North Mountain, but if I recall, that one is yours?"

(_Wait, what_? thought Fritz.)

"Good, good," Elsa nodded. "Make sure all the guards stay on high alert."

"Of course, Your Majesty," said Anders dryly. "The guards have been complaining about being overworked, but, hey, can't hurt to be careful, right?"

Elsa gave him a sharp look. "What's that tone supposed to mean?"

"I couldn't fathom a guess, Your Majesty." Anders turned towards the doorway. "The bathwater is ready whenever you are. We made it cold because we know warm water is too scary for you." The door shut without another word.

Elsa stood in silence for a while. Her bodyguard, meanwhile, had a new facial expression to mark the fact that he now officially had no idea what was happening.

"Don't want to be seen as weak," Elsa said faintly.

* * *

Sitting outside the door while the queen took a bath had not been quite the experience Fritz had imagined. Somehow, instead of listening attentively for every splash and trying to fill in the resulting mental image, Fritz found his thoughts dwelling on monsters and eternal winters. He suspected he was getting in over his head just by being as involved as he already was in the whole affair.

Fritz had begun reluctantly replacing his fantasies of marrying the queen and fathering three beautiful children with fantasies of something, anything at all, happening to just make her stop being sad. Fritz did, at least, like to imagine _he_ would be the catalyst for such a thing, but then that would probably require Fritz to articulate a coherent thought to a gorgeous woman, which would be a pretty advanced action for him.

Bath time came and went and soon enough the queen and her bodyguard headed down to the dining hall for breakfast. There was no council meeting today, so the queen was in no hurry. Fritz figured he was also supposed to get food now – Really, he'd been thrown head-first into this job with minimal instruction, meaning Fritz was forced to make some assumptions necessary for basic survival until anyone told him otherwise.

Fritz somewhat guiltily piled his plate full of "rich people food." He didn't know the names for half the stuff he picked out, but it had to taste better than potatoes and dry cheese, which is what reindeer herders lived on when they were particularly well off.

Fritz chose a seat at the royal end of the huge dining table. He probably wasn't supposed to be there, but Fritz wanted to sit as close to the queen as he could get away with. Y'know, so he could guard her better. Yeah. To be fair, Fritz did make sure to put at least three chairs between himself and the queen. Wouldn't want anyone to think they were sitting together, now did they? Ha ha, no, that'd just be awkward.

The queen started peeling a banana. He wasn't sure why, but Fritz had trouble tearing his eyes away from it.

The queen seemed a bit too lost in thought to eat properly, though. As she fiddled with the fruit's peel, she muttered something angrily under her breath about "imported food taxes." The queen idly infused the banana with frost and then snapped it cleanly in half.

Fritz crossed his legs under the table.

"What's it like to be brave?" the queen suddenly asked. "Anna's brave. She climbed a mountain to find me. She jumped in front of Hans's sword. All I've ever done is run away. The only reason I was even brave enough to 'let it go' was because I thought I was alone and too far away to hurt anyone."

Fritz was going crazy here. The princess was mountain climbing and jumping into swords now? Fritz felt like Queen Elsa was speaking some secret code mere mortals like himself weren't privy to. She'd let something go? What did that even mean? Was "it" some kind of magical Snow Queen-monster she'd been stopping from eating Arendelle, and now she'd released it to terrorize the countryside? Fritz didn't know! He was just a poor farm boy! You couldn't put this kind of pressure on him!

"Well?" The queen gave him a pointed look. "What's it like to be brave?"

It took Fritz another second to realize she wasn't being rhetorical. He honestly had no clue how to reply, so he ended up just blathering out the truth: "Oh, uh, well, I wouldn't really know myself. I mean, last night, when I, uh, risked getting frozen to wake you and stuff, err, well, I don't think I was being brave or anything. I just, uh… I just didn't want _you_ to get hurt… more than I didn't want _me_ to get hurt." Then he quickly added "Your Majesty" to the end. Y'know, to make it sound more formal.

Then queen simply said, "I see," then returned to picking at her food.

Even though the queen's presence dropped the room temperature several degrees, Fritz was beginning to sweat.

* * *

Kristoff liked to think he lived a pretty normal life. He got up at the crack of dawn and fed his reindeer and ate the other half of the reindeer's meal for breakfast, and sometimes he went to visit his family, who were magical rock trolls. And then some crazy girl had waltzed into his life, thrown carrots at his face, and destroyed his sled, and then _all of a sudden_ his life had become strange. But then after he'd accompanied said crazy girl on an adventure up a mountain, befriended a talking snowman, visited an ice palace, gotten chased by a giant snow monster, and then saved the kingdom from eternal winter by _not_ kissing his true love, _then_ Kristoff had kindled the hope that maybe things would settle down and he could get back to living a completely normal life that just happened to involve dating a crazy princess with a sister who doubled as a walking weapon of mass destruction whose trigger was emotional turmoil.

Last time he'd visited the Valley of the Living Rock, Kristoff had given his adoptive family a rushed account of events, then grabbed Grand Pabbie and high-tailed it back to Arendelle, but this time he'd had no excuse not to stick around a few days and give the curious trolls a rundown of everything that'd happened since the winter thawed. Bulda had been particularly interested in Kristoff's relationship with Anna and congratulated him on "stealing her out from under the nose of that other guy." Kristoff had tried to explain that Hans had turned out to be an evil jerk, but oddly it hadn't seemed to matter to the trolls one way or the other.

Right as Kristoff was preparing to mount Sven and return to civilization, he was stopped by none other than Grand Pabbie.

"You've done well, Kristoff."

"Uh, thanks. All I really did was ferry Anna around the wilderness, though."

"You made a bigger impact on the sisters than you give yourself credit for," said Grand Pabbie. "But..." He bowed his head. "...I worry for Queen Elsa. She's used to hiding from the world, and when people step forward who hate her – and they _will_ step forward – I'm afraid she may not have the strength to handle it."

"Well, she's got Anna now to help her," said Kristoff.

"Yes, but... I can't shake the feeling something is wrong." Grand Pabbie let out a deep sigh, then hobbled off towards his burrow.

Kristoff traded glances with his reindeer.

"Kind of a downer, isn't he?" said the voice of Sven, which may or may not have been Kristoff's terrible attempt at ventriloquism.

"Eh, it's nothing you've gotta worry about, pal." Kristoff slung a leg over his buddy so they could trudge off through the forest. "Reindeer don't have to worry about _anything_."

This sentiment inspired Kristoff to reach into his pack to retrieve his trusty lute – which Anna had replaced after using the old one to battle wolves – and sing one of the many, many songs he'd composed on the subject:

"_Reindeer are great,_

_They're the toast of the town,_

_Life's always better,_

_When a reindeer's around…_"

* * *

Despite the constant dread he felt in her presence, Fritz was looking forward to spending the rest of the day with Queen Elsa. Apparently, today was her day off from queenly duties, and Fritz was hoping the more relaxed atmosphere would segue into a conversation with her in which Fritz didn't stutter every other word.

Fritz's aspirations for a relationship with the queen were about to be let down, though (Yeah, you might notice a pattern developing here), because just as she was finishing breakfast, the Admiral approached the royal end of the table.

"Pardon, Your Majesty, but could I borrow your new bodyguard for a while?" he asked. "He's just a kid, and he's been working hard. I'd like to take him out for a treat."

"But, uh, if I leave the queen, won't that defy the whole point of being her bodyguard?" Fritz had half a mind to hide under the table until the Admiral left. He was prone to treat any offer to do something overtly nice for him with suspicion, and besides, Fritz would get way more joy from being in the queen's company than a large, hairy man's.

"No, it's fine, you can go," said the queen, not even bothering to look up from her plate. "I won't be leaving the castle today, so I can make do with the regular guards for a while." Well, there went Fritz's idle hope that maybe _the queen_ had a crush on _him_, too, and was just too bashful to admit it. She'd placed herself firmly in the "wouldn't even give you the time of day" department.

Fritz decided to decline the Admiral's offer himself. But then he remembered he didn't have a backbone, so instead he ended up letting the Admiral lead him halfway across the city to one of the seedier pubs.

Fritz didn't like this. The bar was filthy and the customers were filthy and the drinks were even filthier and darned if Fritz didn't find himself downing way too many of them anyways! It wasn't his fault he drank too much when he got nervous.

But pretty soon Fritz forgot how scared he was, he forgot how suspicious he ought to be of the Admiral buying him unlimited drinks for no apparent reason, and he even forgot how ashamed Momma would be if she ever found out about this. The only thing Fritz did seem to remember was that Queen Elsa was really, really hot and he would never, ever have her.

* * *

What Fritz didn't realize was that the Admiral was currently seated at the table behind him, which was packed to the brim with thugs, ruffians, and other shady characters.

"There he is." The Admiral pointed out Fritz to his companions. "The queen asked for a bodyguard, so I stuck her with the most incompetent dolt I could find!" His friends howled with laughter and exchanged high fives.

"So, uh, that means she's unprotected, right?" said one of the older men. "So then what are we doing loafing around here instead of putting the fear of God into that sorceress harlot?"

"Be patient," came another voice – the only one not amused or gleeful in any way. "The Snow Queen is stronger than she looks. We need to wait for other variables to fall into place."

"Like what, Adrian?"

Instead of answering, Adrian stood up and marched across the room towards Fritz.

Fritz now had a small crowd gathered, listening intently. "Now, I didn't actually see anything, but just between you and me, I think the royal sisters are a little _too_ close, if you know what I'm sayin-"

"You! Boy!" interrupted Adrian, pushing his way through the crowd. "You've been following the queen around for the past two days. Tell me what you've learned about her."

Fritz took the liberty of having another drink before replying, which made his words even more slurred: "_Sheez tha seckziest thang siiiiinse seckzzzz_…"

Suddenly, Adrian grabbed him by the coat collar and held Fritz to eye level. There were screams of alarm from members of the crowd, but the few people not in on the rebellion were being threatened into silence by the majority that were, so there was little they could do but watch in fear.

Fritz made a noise that was half-whimper, half-hiccup.

"I know this sorceress isn't invincible," said Adrian. "She has to have a weakness, and you're going to tell me what it is."

"Nooooooo, muh not sposed tuh tell you." Fritz was on the verge of incoherence. "She doesn't wanna be seen aaaaaas weak."

"What do you mean?" Adrian's eyes narrowed.

"She wus all screamin' in that night," mumbled Fritz, his eyelids drooping. "'Halp, halp, muh on fire!' That sorta thing. An' she freaked out atta lit match. An' other stuff. I'm… sleepy… now… zzzzz…"

Adrian roughly deposited Fritz back in his chair.

"Hey, Adrian, what was that all about?" called the Admiral from across the room.

"Tomorrow." Adrian's face was stone. "We strike tomorrow."


	10. Your Enemy

"Anna is dead."

This time it was a-

"Queen Elsa! Queen Elsa, wake up!"

"Huh… Wha…?" Elsa opened her eyes, disoriented enough that it took her a moment to realize she was lying in bed. The room was pitch black save for a lamp glowing dimly in the corner.

"You were starting to toss and turn in your sleep, Your Majesty. I woke you up like you asked."

Her bodyguard was hovering over Elsa again – the one whose name had all but faded from her subconsciousness by now. It was a remarkably similar setup to last night, except… Well, now that she thought about it, Elsa didn't remember her bodyguard ever returning after the Admiral took him into town. She'd ended up going to bed unguarded.

"Where have you been?" Elsa asked groggily.

"Um," answered the boy.

(It was lucky for Fritz that Elsa was too drowsy to push the issue, because he had a bad feeling that if she ever found out he'd awoken in a shabby bar with no recollection of the last few hours and covered in his own vomit, Fritz would be so fired it wasn't even funny.)

"Thank you for waking me." Elsa rolled over under her covers, facing away from her guard.

Of course, the elephant in the room here was that her bodyguard had most likely woken Elsa at the first sign of trouble more so because she was liable to start shooting ice, making it an action motivated more by self-preservation than pure philanthropy.

(Another reason unbeknownst to Elsa was that Fritz was worried she'd start screaming in her sleep again, and right now any loud noise gave him a killer headache.)

Elsa closed her eyes and tried to lie still, but it got her nowhere. "I'm not sure I can get back to sleep," she admitted, more to herself than to her guard.

For a second, it looked like the bodyguard would remain quiet. But then he got out, voice shaking, "If you want, we could, err, we could talk."

Elsa flipped back over to give him a quizzical stare.

"I just mean that, uh, well, you don't want me telling anyone, so you really have no one else to talk to," the boy stammered out. "About your nightmares, I mean."

Elsa took her time before replying. Truth be told, she really didn't want to talk about this right now, especially not with some kid she barely knew. But ignoring him felt too much like "conceal, don't feel," and that left a bad taste in her mouth. "I'm just… afraid."

The boy almost chuckled at this. It was the closest Elsa had ever seen him come to releasing any of his pent-up tension. "How can you be scared of anything? You're the most powerful thing around for miles."

"That's what I'm afraid of."

Elsa stifled a yawn. Her eyelids were growing heavy…

* * *

Fritz spent several minutes deciding on the perfect reply.

Taking a deep breath, he finally said, "That's incredible. You could probably rule Arendelle with an iron fist if you wanted. All you'd have to do is bust out your powers and make an army of your snow monster things and _bam_ – The world is your oyster! But you don't. In fact, you don't want to hurt anyone with your power, and you're so worried about it that you let it give you nightmares. How many people do you think would act that way in your shoes? You must really care about the people of this kingdom, and, well, I know a lot of people hate you for trapping us in eternal winter, but… I think you make a great queen. No," he corrected himself, "you're more than that…"

Here went nothing. "You're kind and smart and beautiful and… and, well, I've never been able to say this before, but ever since I met you, I've always-"

And then Fritz noticed the steady rising and falling of Elsa's chest. She'd been asleep for the past several minutes by the looks of it. Hadn't taken in a word he'd just said.

Sisyphus with the boulder. That's who Fritz was.

* * *

"Elsa! Freeze the chocolate! It tastes even better that way!"

"C'mon, let's ride our bike inside! We won't get in trouble if Anders doesn't catch us!"

"You can do it, too? Wow, that's amazing! Just wait 'til I tell Elsa!"

"We're gonna build the biggest snow-fort _ever_!"

Anna once again awoke to a flood of restored childhood memories. She yawned, stretched, rolled out of bed, and checked the clock. It was well past three-thirty. That meant that if she wrestled her hair back into shape and threw on some clothes she hadn't just slept in, Anna could look presentable enough not to set off Gerda's radar and still make it to the dining hall a few minutes before they stopped serving lunch.

Life was good. Anna had slept into the afternoon, her sister wasn't locked in her room forever, she had a boyfriend who wasn't secretly plotting to kill her (as far as Anna knew), and the kingdom wasn't even trapped in eternal winter. Everything was perfect.

Well, actually, there was still that whole business with the wight coming to kill Elsa, but Anna was fairly certain whenever that guy reared his ugly head, Elsa would just whoop him with her ice powers and throw his butt in jail. Anna hoped she'd be allowed to punch him first. She'd been aching for another chance to do that.

After her breakfast – which was really more like late lunch – Anna set off through the castle in search of her sister. She eventually found Elsa in the study, knelt over the writing desk and scribbling away with an ink pin.

"Never fear, Elsa, your favorite sister is awake!" Anna announced her dramatic entry. "I'm here to save you from whatever boring nonsense you've gotten yourself into so we can go do something fun."

"Sorry, Anna." Elsa's eyes stayed fixed on her work. "I need to get this done." Anna realized with horror that Elsa was working on the same brick of paperwork from last summer, and the pile had barely gotten any smaller.

"I just remembered I'm allergic to boringness." Anna turned to make her dramatic exit. "Okay then, I'm gonna go do fun stuff all by myself, but before I go, I'd like to remind you that you're the queen and you can do whatever you want, meaning you're wasting hours of your life on boring legal stuff _by choice_."

"I know," Elsa said with a patient smile.

Behind her back, Anna met eyes with Elsa's bodyguard, then pointed to her own temple and spun her index finger around in the universal sign for "this person's craaaaaazy!"

The bodyguard shifted anxiously. It was the same boy from before – the who looked younger than Anna with the head a little on the misshapen side. Currently, he was standing with his back and his standard issue guard hat-and-spear all completely rigid and straight. The boy had clearly been infatuated with Anna since the moment he'd first walked into the gallery, the poor, love-struck fool. He always seemed to be blushing and stumbling over his words in her presence, and even now the boy was staring intently at Elsa, probably too shy to look Anna's way. Of course, Anna had let him down hard, and she couldn't deny she'd gotten a perverse thrill out of it.

When it became clear Elsa was steadfast about doing the lame-o paperwork, Anna reluctantly slinked out of the study and wandered aimlessly down the hall, arms folded. "Great. What am I supposed to do with myself now?"

"Excuse me, Princess Anna?" As if in answer to her thoughts, one of the guards suddenly approached her. It wasn't one Anna recognized, though. Must've been part of the upsurge in staff Anders kept going on about. "The Official Ice Master was spotted heading this way on his reindeer. If you get in a carriage now, you could reach him before he nears the gates."

"Finally!" Anna sighed in relief. She'd been growing increasingly impatient waiting for Kristoff's return. Visiting family was one thing, but what possible appeal could Kristoff find in spending days on end hanging out with a bunch of stinky rock trolls when he had a beautiful princess to attend to?

Well, at any rate, Anna was glad Kristoff was back. For a minute there, she'd been worried today was gonna be boring_._

* * *

The massive group of rebels was gathered at the roof of the watchtower, torches waiting to be lit. From up here, they had a bird's eye view of the castle exterior. Normally, this was meant to help guards be on the alert for any danger to the crown, but currently the tower's purpose was being perverted into quite the opposite.

Getting past the gates hadn't been hard, even for an unwieldy team of thugs clearly up to no good. In fact, the guards on patrol had cheerfully led Adrian's men up the tower stairs. Well, except the ones who hadn't been recently hired by the Admiral, but they were outnumbered five-to-one, and most of them were pretty aged, anyways. Hardly even a hindrance to the rebels' schemes.

"What are we doing wasting time up here?" grunted one of the dimmer ones. "The sorceress is in the castle, ain't she? Why don't we just barge in and burn her already?"

"Variables," said Adrian, who was occupied with watching a carriage leave the castle through a pair of binoculars.

"You and your variables," smirked another rebel. "You'd think this was a math test and not a revolution."

"Ha! Nice one!" He and a friend exchanged high fives.

"Thanks. Y'know, I may be malicious, mean, and scary, but I have a dream that one day I'll be an algebra professor at-"

"Quiet." Adrian lowered the eyepiece. "The queen just entered the courtyard. Storm the castle and follow the Admiral's lead. He knows the way best. And make as much fire as you can before you reach her."

A cheer rang out through the mob. Innumerable bodies began pouring down the staircase, igniting torches as they went. Soon the tower was emptied, leaving only the tied-up hostages – staff too loyal to the queen – and Adrian, who hadn't moved.

The Admiral lingered at the head of the stairs to glare at him. "You coming?"

Adrian shook his head. "I have something else that needs to be taken care of. Go without me."

The Admiral snorted. "Don't tell me you're getting cold feet _now?_ You're the one who started this whole thing in the first place!"

"I know what I'm doing," said Adrian, his voice level.

"And what if I think you're trying to weasel your way out of this because you think we'll fail?"

"If you succeed, you can take all the credit, Admiral. Tell the men I was a coward and you killed me for backing down."

"And if we fail?"

Adrian closed his eyes. "The Snow Queen won't kill you. She fancies herself above such brutality. If she captures and interrogates you, tell her _this_…"

The Admiral liked what he was supposed to tell her. As soon as he heard the words, he erupted with laughter.

"Looks like you've got balls after all," he said, slapping Adrian on the back. "Nice to know we have some insurance now." And with that, he descended the staircase to join up with the rest of the mob.

Adrian stayed behind a while longer. He fingered the scabbard on his belt, which housed the violet sword. He could have joined the rebels in storming the castle. Could have caught her off guard with the enchanted blade and slain her like the monster she was.

But that wasn't what Adrian wanted.

* * *

Elsa told herself she was concentrating on sifting through the swamp of legal documents before her, but truth be told she was letting her mind wander – which was a real shock because the paperwork was usually so gripping. This wouldn't have been so much of a problem if Elsa's mind hadn't happened to be wandering towards wights and fire and all the other things she didn't want to think about.

The image of Anders flashed through her head. _Coward!_ he taunted. _Can't even take a warm bath. Almost froze your sister again because of an itty bitty match._

Elsa dropped her pen into the inkwell and brought her hands to her forehead.

_That's why you can only make ice and not water!_ chimed in imaginary-Anna. _Every time you let yourself get warm, you flip out and kill me again._

Elsa abruptly rose to her feet. "I'm going outside."

"Are you sure?" asked her bodyguard, wincing at her sudden movement (Fritz had been staring at Elsa in a similar fashion to how Elsa had been studying every detail of her paperwork). "It's scorching hot out there-"

"I know."

The guard-whose-name-escaped-Elsa hadn't been wrong. As soon as she stepped into the courtyard, Elsa could feel the sun beating down on her exposed skin. It wasn't as painful as the hot chocolate or the bathwater, but the heat still caused an annoying prickle on the back of her neck.

_You can do this._

Elsa took a deep breath and seated herself on a nearby bench. The sun had heated the stone to the point that it burned her rear, which was nearly enough to make Elsa cry out in pain. But she'd anticipated the heat this time and managed to remain still, though she could feel her ice begging to be released.

_You can do this. You can do this._

Elsa's every impulse was telling her to shoot some ice, drop the air temperature, _something_ to cool down, but instead, Elsa urged her magic to do the opposite. She diminished the radius of cold around herself, making the air as warm as she could, though she had the foresight to ensure her ice-dress remained cold (This would go down in history as one of the biggest letdowns in Fritz's entire life).

"Your Majesty, maybe you should go back inside," said her bodyguard, who judging by his facial expression seemed to think Elsa was having some sort of seizure. "You, uh, strike me as the type who burns easy." His eyes flitted towards Elsa's pale skin.

"In a minute." Elsa extended her palm and summoned an ice crystal within it. Then, just as before, she gradually morphed it into snow. Elsa concentrated on the snow in her hand for a while, but it stubbornly refused to become water. "Gah! I give up!" She hurled the slush to the ground, where the sun-baked brick did a much better job melting it than she ever could. "Alright, alright, I'm going back in." Elsa returned her hands to her forehead. "This sunlight's giving me a horrible headache-"

_Sploosh._

Out of nowhere, a snowball hit Elsa's face.

"Sorry! I think that was my kidney!" called out a familiar voice.

Elsa blinked in surprise and turned around to find a group of children, none older than ten, across the courtyard from her. There was nothing surprising about that – the youngsters had taken to playing here ever since the permanent opening of the castle gates. What _was_ surprising was the fact that this band of kids was crowded around an overturned Olaf, whose middle segment was spilled out over the pavement.

Every last child was staring at Elsa, wide-eyed and quivering with fear.

"Did you just… _throw a snowball_ at your queen?" Elsa advanced on the group. The poor children looked like they would've run for their lives if they weren't so petrified.

One of the braver kids – a spiky-haired blond boy of around six – quickly said, "What no it was an accident I was aiming for that skinny guy next to you _please don't kill us__!_"

"Well, I hope you weren't trying to start a snowball fight." A wide, thin smile crossed Elsa's face. "Because the queen _always wins_ snowball fights." Elsa raised her arms and crafted a snowball the size of a small boulder. This was enough to un-petrify a handful of children and send them heading for the hills. Elsa dropped the snowboulder, giggling. Her laughter seemed to ease the remaining kids up. "What are you doing with my snowman?"

"They're giving me a lobotomy," said Olaf happily.

"We're playing doctor," said the blond boy's companion, a tiny brunette girl who looked like she'd rather be doing anything than performing surgery on a snowman.

"Well, let's try to keep Olaf in one piece, shall we?" With a wave of her hand, Elsa sent out a gust of cold wind that returned all the scattered Olaf-insides to their proper shape. It even blew Olaf's personal flurry back into place – One of the children had been poking it with a stick (Olaf's stolen arm), and the snow cloud had apparently gotten annoyed and wandered off from its owner.

"Phew! Thanks a ton, Elsa." Olaf sighed in relied. "That feels way better."

Just then, Elsa felt a tug at her cape. The culprit was another boy, this one around four.

"Hello there," smiled Elsa.

"I heawd you fweeze evewything you touch," said the child. He didn't sound scared, just curious.

"That's not true. See?" Elsa knelt down to gently brush her hand against the child's cheek (Fritz regarded the boy with something resembling envy). "I _used_ to freeze everything I touched, but I don't anymore."

"Oh." The child furrowed his brow. "But then when you used to fweeze evewything you touched, was it hawd to use the bathwoom?"

"Hey, look over there!" Elsa suddenly said. "I think Olaf wants to play with you." When the child's back was turned, she hastily moved to another region of the courtyard.

Elsa spent the next several minutes fending off the horde of curious children ("No, I'm not making the courtyard a skating rink again. Maybe some other time…"), but she didn't mind. In fact, she was just beginning to forget what she'd been so upset about when a dark voice from behind her said, "Having fun, your majesty?"

Elsa jerked in surprise and spun around to face her accuser. "Anders," she said curtly. "What are you doing here?"

"Somehow, despite my best efforts, I continue to find myself accompanying your snowman on his misadventures," said Anders. "And I do believe I could ask the same question of you. I'd have thought it was too warm out for your liking."

Elsa jolted at this. Now that she thought about it, it _was_ still warm out.

"Of course, it didn't seem to bother you as much once you started playing with those youngsters, now did it?" said Anders absently. "Queen Elsa, have I ever told you about one of my older friends? Passed away some time ago. He used to walk with a pronounced limp... only his leg was fine. Psychosomatic injury."

Elsa sighed and shut her eyes. The prickling on her neck was back. "Anders, in the future, if I want your advice, I will ask for it."

"I'll wait with bated brea-" But Anders's next smart remark was cut short. "Is that smoke?"

Elsa was going to turn to see what Anders was staring at, but she never got the chance. The next instant, the gates were thrown open and the courtyard was filled with countless men, all of them large, musclebound, and angry.

But Elsa didn't see them. All she saw was the fire.

"We've come with a message, Snow Queen!" The man at the head of the mob raised his torch high. Elsa ought to have recognized him as the Admiral, but right now her mind felt like a pit of quicksand. "Arendelle will not bow to a sorceress!"

The mob waited a moment to let the words sink in, which at least gave Anders time to herd screaming children and a confused snowman out the back exit.

"Elsa!" Her bodyguard immediately placed himself between her and the mob. Didn't even hesitate, though his spear trembled in his hands. But all it earned the boy was a quick jab to the face. He crumpled like he was made of paper.

"Your Majesty, far be it from me to tell the queen what to do," said Anders as the last child fled the courtyard, "but now may be an appropriate time to use your powers."

Elsa didn't hear him. She didn't even quite register that there was an angry mob in front of her. The only sight in Elsa's eyes was a tremendous wall of fire, and when it charged at her she turned and _ran_.


	11. But If It Had to Perish Twice

"Wakey, wakey, angel…"

The girl opened her eyes. Staring back at her was a human skull. Or rather, a human skill with sunken, glassy eyeballs, greasy hair, and a thin layer of skin stretched over it. She tried to scream, but her voice came out muffled. Something was covering her mouth – something cold and moist. And whatever it was, it was over her limbs and neck too, locking them in place. She couldn't so much as turn her head.

"Remember me? I hope you do, 'cause I know I remember you…"

In the dimness, the figure before her almost looked like a skeleton wrapped in a tattered cloak. She wanted to say it was human, but it was hard to tell for sure in the dimness. The only light source came from a circular opening in the wall a few feet away. Was this a cave?

It didn't matter. She had to focus on breathing through her nose. Focus on- _God, what was happening?_

"C'mon, I'm the guy from the bar!" The _thing_ brushed its bony black hand across her cheek. A shiver ran down her spine. "I ordered the extra ice."

The waitress did vaguely remember that raspy voice, but she was a bit too distracted to dwell on it. Instead, she focused on flitting her eyes around the cave. She saw hay – Why on earth were there pieces of hay lining the ground? – and, even odder, what appeared to be a picture frame propped up against the side of the cave. It contained a portrait of a beautiful young girl.

"Oh, you like that?" The creature turned his sunken, yellow eyes towards it. "It's great art, but this picture here is of my worst enemy. That's why I killed the guy. Couldn't stand seeing him paint such an amazing portrait of my worst enemy, now could I?" The creature smiled, his lips stretched thin, as if he was recalling a fond memory. "Of course, she won't be a problem much longer. It's already started. You can see the smoke from outside." He gestured lazily in the direction of the opening. "But of course, you must be wondering why I chose _you_."

The girl wasn't listening. She was too busy staring at another, more striking, feature of the cave – skeletons. Countless skeletons littering the floor. Some were human, some were animal, and some weren't even whole, just piles of scattered bones.

"Well, if you must know, it's because I find you a little on the chubby side."

Pure white bones.

"Just the way I like 'em."

* * *

The mob stood motionless in the courtyard, torches burning wastefully. To be honest, they'd been expecting at least a little resistance from the legendary Snow Queen. Most of them had heard about Prince Hans's raid on the Ice Palace, and they were feeling a bit let down by the hype.

The men turned to the Admiral.

"Looks like we found her Achilles' heel." He held his own blazing torch aloft and bellowed, "After her, men! After the monster that trapped us in eternal winter!"

There was a frenzied roar from the crowd.

"Yeah! _And_ she raised taxes!"

"Kill the beast! Kill the beast!"

"Have you heard what they say she's been doing with her sister? _Let's burn the floozy__!_"

A flood of bodies stormed after the queen's trail.

* * *

The children, snowman, and butler had ended up huddled in the castle dungeon, safe behind its iron doors. The prison where Hans had once trapped Elsa had now become a haven. And since it was made of cold stone, the dungeon was safe from the inferno rapidly spreading across the upper levels of the castle.

The inferno. Anders moaned at the memory. He'd seen it while guiding the children down here – an endless sea of fire spilling over carpets, wallpaper, and everything else flammable. Most of that stuff had been there since Anders was a boy, and just the thought of losing it-

What was wrong with him? There were _people_ in there! The staff had to have been caught completely off guard. Anders thanked God the children hadn't passed any on their way down. The flames alone had been enough to send them into hysterics. Anders could hardly bring himself to look at their faces.

And the snowman, of course, was running his mouth incessantly. It figured that in the midst of everything, fate would still conspire to trap Anders with that intolerable-

But then Anders caught the words Olaf was saying: "Shh, hey, it's alright, guys. We are, like, really safe down here." He was the only one – _the only one_ – keeping a level head, and not only that, but Olaf was trying his hardest to calm the children down, too, dishing out soothing words and warm hugs at a rapid rate.

Anders's chest clenched.

"But they're gonna kill the queen!" one of the older children choked out.

"Ha! No way!" said Olaf. "Elsa's way tougher than them. This one time, she threw me and my buddies off a mountain by making this ginormous snow monster!"

"Wow! She can make _snow monsters?_"

"Sure can! In fact, I'm actually part snow monster myself."

Anders shut his eyes. Olaf had stepped out of a whole different world – one where young children never had to flee angry mobs or escape burning buildings, and little girls didn't have to see their parents sail away and never come back home.

_Anders, there was a storm at sea, it's been weeks, they should've been back by now._

He'd been reading a novel in his favorite armchair. A completely ordinary night. He'd never forget that.

_What do we tell the girls?_ Kai asked the inside of Anders's head for the five billionth time in the last three years.

Olaf's words had gone a long way towards calming the children, but at least one suddenly resumed bawling loudly.

"Hey, it's okay, I've got you," said Olaf, wrapping the little girl in his stick arms. "There's nothing to cry about."

"Buh- Buh- But-" The toddler pointed a shaking arm towards the corner of the room. "Even the grown-up is crying!"

Anders quickly turned his head away. How could he have let them see? So selfish. He was so selfish. All Anders wanted to do was forget any of this was happening, but a second later he was yanked back into reality by a gentle tug on his pants leg.

"Hey, Anders, you okay?" Olaf's oversized snow-front-tooth jutted out from beneath a frown.

"_No_, I'm not _okay!_" Anders snapped, burying his eyes in his hand. "Elsa's not going to save us. She's terrified of fire! I saw her run away screaming!"

A wave of horror crashed over every child in the dungeon. But not Olaf.

"It's part of her cunning trick!" he immediately said. "She's waiting until she catches them off guard and then _bam__!_ Giant snow monster!" Most of the children seemed to buy this and calmed back down.

Anders found his face contorting against his will. "It's all my fault. I was too hard on her. I knew Elsa was afraid of heat, but instead of trying to comfort her… all I did was cut her down. How could I be so horrible?"

A stick poked his thigh. This was Olaf trying to pat Anders on the back but being unable to reach quite that high.

"You're not horrible," said Olaf, matter-of-fact. "You're a great guy. In fact, you're my new best friend, remember?"

"How can you say that?" said Anders, his shoulders heaving. "I've been the _most_ horrible to _you._"

"I know, but I don't mind." Olaf smiled at him. "I can tell you're a good person. You've just got a funny way of showing it."

It was at this that Anders really lost it. He fell to his knees and sobbed like he hadn't sobbed in three years.

"What's wrong?"

"_I cuh-cah-can't do it again. __I__ cuh-cah-can't bury another one._"

Olaf happened to be a snowman of very little brain, meaning when confronted with an unfamiliar situation, he defaulted to his old standby:

"Y'know what you need? A warm hug!"

"Yes... I would like one."

* * *

During the years of isolation, the castle hallways had been a constant comfort to Elsa. They were reminders of times long past – of sliding down stair railings, mimicking the poses of the people in the paintings, skidding across the wood floor in stockings… Calm. Familiar.

But now it was all dyed an alien, orange hue.

Elsa tore through the corridors. She felt like an observer in her own head, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't collect herself. All she could think about was the smoke in her nostrils and the heat on her face. How could she have ever thought _the sunshine_ was hot just a few minutes ago?

Wait, minutes? No, it had to have been hours…

Elsa felt dizzy. Her surroundings were so charred and black that she couldn't even tell where she was anymore. Doing her best to tune out the constant crackling noise, Elsa darted her eyes around. Had to see where she was, had to find a landmark…

The paintings! She must have been in the gallery, then, though the portraits were barely recognizable at this point. The ones not still blazing were ash by now. And all Elsa could think was, _Anna loved those._

And then Elsa saw them. Eyes. Staring right at her. In the middle of the blazing canvases, one portrait was miraculously untouched. Joan of Arc stared at Elsa from the back of her horse. She looked disappointed.

Elsa fled the room.

She didn't know where she was going – _ignore the crackling noise, ignore the sound of yelling men from the other room_ – and Elsa hardly even noticed as her legs took her up a flight of stairs. Of course, going upstairs during a fire wasn't her greatest idea ever, but not even the most basic fire safety rules drilled into her as a girl were sticking right now.

Elsa's feet screamed in protest. Walking in heels was one thing, but running in them was a whole different story. Hardly aware of what she was doing, Elsa dashed for the first door at the top of the stairs, flung herself inside, and locked it behind her.

No fire in here. Elsa hit the carpet and curled into the fetal position. The crackling was gone, but it was replaced with a horrible gasping noise. It took Elsa a second to realize it was coming from herself.

_Focus on breathing._ Even before sucking in all that smoke, Elsa had been dimly aware that she was breathing all wrong – a rapid contortion of her chest that made her inhale and exhale too deeply and too often. Elsa waited for her breathing to slow. It never did. _So stupid._ She could control her ice, but she couldn't control her own lungs?

_Don't just lie there!_ scolded a tiny, distant voice in Elsa's head. _Move!_ But Elsa was having trouble getting her legs to work. So now she couldn't even run away again. And, oh, how badly she wanted to run away again. Elsa wanted to bolt across the harbor, her footfalls freezing water as they landed. Wanted to get far away from the castle and the people and the fire.

But most of all she wanted to go back to her Ice Palace. She missed it.

_Coward_. _You _still_ want to run away. Nothing's changed. You're the same __little girl__ who nearly killed Anna._

Elsa forced herself to stop thinking. To take her mind off it, she looked for the first time at her surroundings. The room was barren, containing nothing but wallpaper. Not even any furniture.

Oh. Elsa knew where she was now. Her original bedroom. Old habits die hard.

_You're still not breathing right._

Visually, it was unrecognizable. As a child, Elsa had been reduced to memorizing ever minute detail of this room, making the change particularly jarring. She'd ended up hating it so much that she'd ordered her new bedroom to have entirely new furniture. But somehow, this room still felt the same as ever. Despite the fire raging just outside, years of uncontrolled ice-magic had left the room with a permanent chill in its air.

Elsa hadn't been in this room since coronation day. Heck, she'd had half a mind to have the whole thing bricked in. And now she was back. Somehow, wildly, Elsa found this even more upsetting than the fire, and yet she couldn't bring herself out of the fetal position.

_Still not breathing right._

Elsa felt like she'd been lying on the ground forever, but time caught up with her when the sound of a thousand footsteps reached her ears from the stairs. This was followed by the sound of one of the doors across the hall being kicked open.

"Not in her bedroom," came a loud, clear voice. "Come out, come out, sorceress! We know you're up here!"

Elsa caught the faint sound of furniture crashing and glass shattering, which must have been from her dresser mirror.

"Maybe she's hiding in the dungeons?" said a different voice. "I saw a buncha kids go down there."

_You're breathing too loud. They'll hear you. __You're breathing too loud__!_

"What, you want us to go light the kids on fire? We're not monsters."

_Your heartbeat's too loud! They'll hear it!_

"Yeah, but that thing is down there, too. The little snow freak she made."

"Good point. It needs to be burned, too."

"Heh. Bet it'll be fun to watch it squirm."

_It's okay_, Elsa told herself. _You can refreeze him_. She couldn't believe she'd just thought that. Coward.

_I don't think I was being brave or anything_. All of a sudden, words were flashing though Elsa's head._ I just didn't want _you_ to get hurt… more than I didn't want _me_ to get hurt._

The memory made her smile the tiniest bit. But… maybe it was the chaos of the moment, but Elsa couldn't for the life of her remember who'd said it. Must have been Anna. It sounded like something Anna would say.

Elsa was broken from her thoughts when the voices spoke again:

"Let's check the princess's room."

"What if the princess is in there? What do we do with her?"

"What do you think, you idiot? She's the queen's sister! She's probably a sorceress, too." And then louder, to address the whole mob: "_Y'hear that? If we find the princess, we burn her, too!_"

* * *

The instant the word "too" was out his mouth, the Admiral's torch went out. Every eye in the mob fell on the smoking black stub in his hand.

The thug to the Admiral's immediate left was the first to figure it out. "Oh sh-" _Hsss. _His own torch extinguished. Then a third torch did likewise. Then a fourth one.

A wave of cold wind swept across the entire room. In fact, it didn't stop there. The entire castle was rocked by the updraft. Like the first few gusts before a hurricane. Every bit of fire in Arendelle castle was extinguished at once.

A hush fell over the crowd. Then, the quiet was broken by the distinct sound, directly behind them, of a high heel stomping against the ground.


	12. Stronger Than One, Stronger Than Ten

On one end of the bedchamber hallway, a mob of dozens of hulking, muscular men. On the other, a waifish young girl. The mob collectively took a few steps back.

"You came into my home." Elsa's voice was neither timid nor angry. It was tranquil. "And set it on fire. In front of children." She held out an arm. "You have one chance to surrender."

A second ago, the rioters had been armed with flaming torches. Now they were armed with smoking, black hunks of wood. There was a clatter of countless hunks falling to the ground.

Elsa allowed herself a smile. But then the moment was ruined by the Admiral drawing his sword and bellowing, "She can't take us all!" The horde bull rushed Elsa. Honestly, she'd been kind of hoping they'd do that.

When Hans's men had stormed her Ice Palace, Elsa had been caught off guard. She'd been wet behind the ears with her powers, and it'd nearly gotten her killed. And so, while she detested violence, after that day Elsa had often found herself planning out what she'd have done differently. Meaning the instant the rebels charged, she readily sent them off their feet. After all, charging at full force is a pretty bad idea when the floor can turn into ice at a moment's notice.

With a quick swish of her arms, Elsa trapped as many fallen men as she could under blankets of ice, pinning them by their limbs and torsos. This evened up the odds quite a bit, but there was still a handful of thugs who'd escaped her opening volley. They skidded across the ice, and some even made it close enough to swing at Elsa, but they fell short of actually reaching her, instead tipping and landing on their faces. This was likely because Elsa had frozen their feet to the floor.

Now that natural selection had done its thing, Elsa was staring down only the most skilled fighters. About three of them immediately threw punches her way, but Elsa raised an ice-wall at the last minute, and her attackers were left cursing and clutching their broken knuckles.

The remaining brawlers backed away slowly. Erring on the side of caution, were they? Elsa responded to this by dropping the ice-wall, blinking innocently, and letting out a girlish giggle. It seemed to do the trick.

"Die, you two-piece harlot!"

"Stupid strumpet!"

For the last few enemies, Elsa decided to go the more direct route. She hurled a snowball into the eyes of the nearest one, blinding him long enough for her to smash a blunt icicle into his gut. For the next one, Elsa summoned a cloud over his head with hail big enough to leave a nasty concussion. And for the one after that, Elsa went the most direct route of all and trapped him in a cage of icicles. The man almost looked disappointed.

There was one last rebel who'd slipped away during the chaos. He tried to sneak up on Elsa from behind, but she sent a fist-shaped hunk of ice into his face without so much as turning around.

Now the only man standing was the Admiral. He'd hung back by the staircase, not even attempting to make a move against the Snow Queen. This was probably wise seeing as Elsa had just single-handedly schooled every other rebel without so much as leaving the spot she was standing on.

"What was that you were saying?" smirked Elsa.

When the tremendous wall of ice charged at the Admiral, he turned and _ran_.

There was no longer any fire lining the charred, black castle hallways, but there was still a thick cloud of smoke. This allowed the Admiral to put some distance between himself and the pursuing queen, especially when coupled with the high heels on her feet. Lord, was she still wearing those things? Elsa furiously kicked the footwear off so she could sprint barefoot. The floor was still scorching hot, but it grew cooler with each footfall.

Unlike when Elsa had fled, the Admiral seemed to know exactly where he was going. He took sharp twists and sudden turns without a moment's hesitation. Elsa tried to hurl some bolts of ice at him, but he was too nimble and she was too out-of-breath.

The chase took the pair back outside to the courtyard. The Admiral made a dash for the entrance gates, but instead of going through them, he turned to smile at Elsa. Elsa hesitated at the center of the yard. That smirk couldn't be good news. Sure enough, a second later a swarm of arrows was raining down on her. Elsa yelped and impulsively threw up an ice wall, trapping all the arrows mid-flight. One of them was millimeters from the tip of her nose.

Hmm, that was a bit closer than the last time a crossbow had fired at her. She must have been losing her touch.

Another volley of arrows was quickly launched, but all failed to penetrate the ice-wall. Elsa followed their flight paths to locate the archers. She could faintly make out a handful of men atop the watchtower, crossbows aimed at her position, adorned in the emerald uniforms of the royal guard.

Well, _they_ were fired.

Elsa tried to shoot ice at the tower, but it was too far away. Of course, the range of Elsa's powers was at least the size of Arendelle, but that didn't automatically make her great at aiming at something she couldn't see. Not only were the archers just barely on the border of her field of vision, but since she was seeing them through her ice-shield, they looked distorted, too.

Elsa fired her ice at the tower blindly, which managed to hit exactly zero rebellious guards. She supposed she could just blanket the whole watchtower indiscriminately, except Elsa didn't want to risk killing anyone if it could be avoided – Not that her enemies reserved the same formality for her. Besides, what if there were innocent people up there?

Elsa closed her eyes. She had limitless power over the ice and snow. She could take a few bows and arrows. She can do anything – She just have to get creative enough. What would Anna do?

The stern glare of Joan of Arc flashed through Elsa's mind.

* * *

The tower guards kept their bows fixed on the ice-wall in the courtyard below, waiting for their window.

Of course, most of these guards were actually rebels put on the squad by the Admiral. The only "real" guards were bound by ropes and chains and left discarded on the floor. Their numbers were few, and the ones not unconscious were simply gagged. But other than beating up the queen's loyal staff, the rebel-guards hadn't expected much action. The Admiral had regulated them to guard duty, which, while necessary, was hard to feel enthusiastic about when all your friends were getting to light stuff on fire.

Firing crossbows at the queen had been a backup plan in case the fire plan went south. The rebels had assumed the queen couldn't fight back from this distance – which had seemingly been confirmed when Elsa sent a wave of ice at the tower and missed her attackers by several feet.

Two of the men traded glances, then burst out laughing.

"_This_ is the legendary Snow Queen?"

"Ooh, look out, she might freeze something in your general vicinity!"

"What a let-down," scoffed another one. "Here I was expecting a challenge. We've got her like a trapped rat. All we gotta do now is wait for her to come out of hiding behind that ice. Man, I can't believe this is the sorceress everyone's making such a big deal abou-"

"Wait, look, she's lowering her ice-wall!" another suddenly said.

The rebels eagerly released their crossbow bolts, but not a single one reached its target. Apparently, the queen had dropped her barrier so she could charge straight towards the watchtower. This boldness was possible because her ice-dress had morphed into a new form – chainmail mixed with thick plate armor. The arrows that didn't bounce off were embedded in the ice a safe distance from her skin.

"Very clever," snarled the rebel, "but she still can't possibly reach us from-"

As he spoke, Elsa shot her magic towards her own feet. This sent her ascending skywards on a pillar of ice. And from the top of this ice-tower, Elsa's view of the archers was perfectly clear.

The rebels' screams sounded strikingly similar to four-year-old girls.

* * *

Most of the bedchambers hallway was now filled with ice, and most of the ice was now filled with rebels. The ones who weren't unconscious struggled wordlessly against their restraints. No good.

There was a long silence.

"…Maybe this was a bad idea," said the man in the icicle-cage.

"Shut up, Greg. Just shut up."

* * *

The instant the Admiral saw the ice-tower and realized his archers wouldn't be protecting him quite as well in a few seconds, he bolted for the gates. Unfortunately for him, that "few seconds" part was literal. He barely covered a couple of feet before the tower vanished and Elsa surfed back down towards the courtyard on a stream of ice.

A sky-blue knight landed between the Admiral and the gate. The Admiral immediately dropped his sword and put his hands in the air. "I surrender!"

The ice-knight stood still, back perfectly straight. Her helmet dissolved away, revealing Elsa's face. Any trace of its usual softness had vanished. "When I said you only had one chance, I _wasn't kidding_." A massive tidal wave of frost instantly overtook the Admiral, trapping his entire body from the neck down in a jagged glacier.

And that was the end of the rebellion.

The Admiral squirmed, but it was useless. Elsa leisurely strolled closer to look him in the eyes. "I take it you're behind this?" she asked, her voice perfectly even. "Giving all the new staff positions to your band of rebels so the mob could slip past the castle's defenses? Makes sense. But why? You've been working here since I was a little girl."

"Oh? And you think I enjoyed it, do you?" The Admiral stared Elsa right in the eye, unflinching. "Spending years of my life watching your parents scramble to pacify you? Unable to tell anyone about you under penalty of treason, not that anyone would've believed me? Seeing you be groomed for the throne, you disgusting unbaptized changeling? The crown wasn't meant for _your_ kind." A sneer crossed his face. "Know why you've got that curse? Your parents had you out of wedlock. God was punishing them. When I heard what happened to 'em on their little cruise, I laughed for days. Couldn't have happened to better people."

Elsa's face twitched the slightest amount.

"I woulda acted sooner, but seeing as your condition wasn't exactly public knowledge, I had trouble rallying enough people to the cause. But then you took care of that problem for me coronation night, didn't you?" The Admiral chuckled to himself. "You don't belong here. Go back to your room, _freak_." He spat on her.

Elsa slowly wiped her cheek. "Well," she said mildly, "I hope that was worth the treason charge."

* * *

When they heard approaching footsteps, the children and snowman immediately huddled behind Anders. The dungeon door swung open to reveal a stunning sight – an overweight man on the other side of middle-aged.

"Thank goodness you're alright!" Kai sighed in relief. "We're all safe now. It would appear our queen, err, singlehandedly quashed the rebellion."

Cheers of amazement and joy rang out from the gathered children.

"_Cunning trick_," whispered Olaf, nodding his head in approval.

The young ones were sent home with some interesting stories to tell their parents, while Olaf and Anders went straight to the courtyard. Several staff members were out and about by now. It was pretty obvious which ones were still loyal to the queen since they were the ones who'd been taken hostage and hadn't just tried to light her on fire.

"Elsa!" The instant he laid eyes on her, Anders charged towards Elsa at speeds old men seldom travel and trapped her in a tight hug. "I'm sorry!" he sobbed. "I'm so sorry! Can you ever forgive a bitter old man for being cruel?" He was so overcome with emotion that he forgot to scoff at her unladylike suit of armor.

"Anders-?" Elsa was speechless. Was this elderly man crying like a baby the same sarcastic butler she knew and loved?

"I should never have said what I said to you! I had no right, no right-"

"Anders, no, I…" Elsa took a deep breath. The memories of fire and shallow breathing flashed through her head. "I'm the one who should be apologizing to you. You were trying to help me in your own way, and I was too prideful to hear it."

"But all I did was hurt you-"

"That's not true," cut in Elsa. "I… I realize now that because my rise to the throne was… premature, I've lacked people in my life to turn to for guidance, and so it's too seldom I'm told truths I don't want to hear. But your words made me realize something – I never wanted to hurt people by using my powers, but now I see that I also don't want to hurt people by _not_ using my powers."

Anders nodded slowly.

"Anders, today I saw too clearly what some citizens think of me, and… your concern for my well-being means a lot. I'm proud to have you as my… my butler." Elsa returned the hug.

"Yay! Hugs!" And Olaf joined in, too, just for good measure.

It was at this point that Kai entered the courtyard carrying a piece of parchment. "Your Majesty," he greeted, giving Elsa a quick bow. "All staff members are present and accounted for. Although the castle took some minor structural damage from the blaze, there are no reported casualties." He looked up from the paper to beam at her. "You saved all of our lives."

Elsa ended the hug and returned the smile.

"You put out the whole fire before it could spread far at all," said Kai. "In fact, I don't think there's a single serious-" He glanced back down at the paper. "Whoops, my mistake. There was exactly one serious injury. Your bodyguard took a nasty blow to the head. He's in the infirmary right now."

"Yes, yes," said Elsa, "but what about Anna? Is she safe?"

"Erm…" Kai traded a glance with Anders, who traded it with Olaf. All three shrugged. "I'm afraid I haven't seen her today." Elsa's gut immediately twisted itself into a knot.

But then a voice called out, "Oh, oh, I saw the princess!" Gerda was standing a couple feet away from them. "She said she was going to visit her boyfriend. I saw her leave in a carriage a few minutes before the attack started. She probably missed out on the whole thing."

Elsa let out the biggest sigh of relief of her life. "Thank God."

But the relief was undercut by the sound of cold laughter. Elsa glided across the courtyard to resume glaring at the still-frozen Admiral.

"What's so funny?" she asked tightly.

"You may not want to thank Him just yet," said the Admiral. "That boyfriend you're talking about… He wouldn't happen to be _that_ boy, would he?" His eyes pointed towards the gate.

Elsa's own eyes moved to follow his gaze… and then widened with horror. Coming through the entrance gates were the familiar faces of Kristoff and Sven. The only problem was they were both limping, bloodied, and sporting matching arrow wounds.

"_Get a doctor__!_" Elsa dashed towards them. "Kristoff, what happened? Where's-?" She had a bad feeling she already knew the answer.

Kristoff collapsed into Elsa's arms. He managed to choke out, "He… took her…"

The next instant, Elsa descended on the Admiral. Cold air was seeping out of her clenched fists like a tea kettle fixing to boil over. "Where is she?" Elsa's voice alone sounded dangerous.

The Admiral made the mistake of laughing to her face. "'She' who?"

The next second, his mouth and nostrils were covered by a sheet of ice. Elsa waited until the Admiral's face blued before dissolving it. "_Where's Anna_?"

"The lake!" he said between gasps for air. "The one you froze!"

"That'd better be the truth." Elsa gave the Admiral one last glare before turning away. "For your sake."

The Admiral had gone pale as a sheet. He was beginning to seriously question Adrian's claim what the Snow Queen fancied herself above.

* * *

The wight lay belly-up on the muddy floor of his cave. His collection of skeletons had swelled by one more.

"Not bad," he said to himself. "But I'm still hungry… Yes, always hungry..." He turned to gaze at the portrait still resting against the cave's wall. "Soon you'll be dea-eh-ed!" he said in a singsong voice. "And then she'll be _all mine_."

The wight laughed. He was thinking about the waitress. Another, secret reason he'd chosen her was that she'd reminded the wight of his worst enemy. And while he knew better than to try to eat his _real_ worst enemy – Where was the fun in that? – a lookalike was an acceptable substitute.

The wight laughed again. That waitress had greatly amused him. He'd liked the way she'd squirmed. And he'd especially liked the way she'd met her end with absolutely no idea how or why it had happened. The waitress's final thoughts had been panicked, unanswered questions like "What is this _thing_ eating me?" or "How did I get here?" or "Why is there a painting of Princess Anna in its cave?"


	13. Damsel in Distress

The carriage bumped over the rocky dirt road, traveling through a small thicket of trees at a fair speed. Anna sat slouched in the back, feet propped up on the seat ahead of her, humming an upbeat tune. "_Gonna go see Kristoff and everything will be awesome…_"

The guard guiding the horse glanced at the guard beside him. They both wore perfectly nonchalant expressions that screamed, "Nothing suspicious going on here!"

The horse came to a sudden halt. "Here we are," announced a guard.

"Finally!" Anna hopped out the coach and dashed straight for her boyfriend, who was heading her way atop his trusty reindeer.

"Anna? What are you doing here?" Kristoff dismounted to give her a greeting-hug.

"I wanted to come see you as soon as I could."

"Okay, but, y'know, you could've just waited a few minutes for me to reach the castle."

"Yeah, but I was so bored! I swear, nothing interesting ever happens around there." Anna rolled her eyes. "I bet you anything Elsa's still doing that stupid paperwork. If she keeps at it any longer, we'll have to put her in the sun and water her twice a day."

"Alright, then," smirked Kristoff, "Let's head home so we can both be bored out of our minds together."

"Sounds like a plan." Anna took her hairy mountain man by the arm.

"Apologies, Your Highness," said a voice from behind them. "You'll have to cancel that plan."

The couple spun around to find a tall, muscular man with gray-streaked hair emerging from the trees. Despite the sweltering weather, he wore the heavy brown coat of an ice harvester.

"Adrian?" frowned Kristoff. "What's up?"

"You should leave now, boy." Adrian cracked his knuckles. "This doesn't concern you."

Kristoff held up his hands. "Hey, back up, pal. I'm not sure I like that tone."

"How perceptive of you." Adrian's face was passive. "Last chance to leave."

"I don't know what's gotten you so ticked lately," said Kristoff, trying his best to sound soothing, "but whatever it is, let's all try and stay calm, okay? We don't want any-"

"Guards, ATTACK!" yelled Anna.

"-trouble."

Anna pointed at Adrian theatrically. There was a pause. "Uh… _Ahem?_" Anna glared at her guards. They did indeed have their crossbows drawn, but… "Hey, wait, point those at him, not at me! What are you-?"

"You're outmatched, Princess Anna," said Adrian. "Don't bother struggling. You're coming with me."

"Oh, I've got every intention of struggling, mister!" Anna raised her fists, but then Adrian took a step forward and she shrank behind Kristoff. "_What do we do?_" she whispered.

"_I don't know_," Kristoff whispered back. He kept gawking at Adrian like he couldn't believe his eyes. "_I can't take all three of them by my_-"

But Kristoff was interrupted by the sound of frantic braying and then a loud _crack._ Sven, sensing his best friend's distress, had rammed into one of the rebel-guards at full force.

"Sven, don't-!" But Kristoff was helpless to stop the other guard from emptying his crossbow into the reindeer's side. Sven thrashed wildly and let out a feral shriek.

The next instant, the guard's face contained significantly more fist than it had a second ago. "_You do NOT touch my reindeer__!_" But this only earned Kristoff an arrow wound of his own.

"_Kristoff__!_" Anna watched in horror as he crumpled to the ground, cursing. She tried to run to his side, but she was stopped by a vice grip on her arm.

"Don't move," ordered Adrian. Anna immediately struggled as hard as she could.

"Agh! Dat son ubba bib boke mah node!" The guard not trampled by a rampaging reindeer aimed his bow at Kristoff's back.

"No. Leave him." Adrian turned to Kristoff, ignoring the string of colorful names Anna was calling him, and said, "Go to the castle, boy. Tell the queen that if she wants to see her sister again, she should return to the lake she froze. Alone." And with that, he trudged off, dragging the squirming Anna with him. The still-conscious rebel-guard quickly followed suit, leaving Kristoff to calm his flailing reindeer.

Adrian brought Anna to a small clearing between the trees, where a golden-brown horse waited for them.

"Okay, you got the girl," said the guard, rubbing his nose. "What now?"

"Here." Adrian tossed him a sackful of coins. "Don't bother rejoining the other rebels. They were never going to overcome the queen. Probably already failed by now. In fact, you'll want to ditch that uniform."

"So after all those uplifting speeches you gave, the whole thing was just a distraction?" The guard snorted and vanished into the woods.

Now Adrian was alone with Anna.

"Look, pal, whatever you're up to, it's not gonna work!" snarled Anna, her struggle to escape his grip unceasing. "Unless you want your ransom paid in frostbite, in which case I'm sure the palace will be happy to-"

"Hold still or I will hurt you." Adrian sounded matter-of-fact, as if he were instructing a small child.

"Do your worst!"

"Fine, then, I'll go back to your boyfriend and hurt _him_."

Anna gave him another death glare, but she reluctantly allowed Adrian to retrieve some rope from a pack slung over the horse's saddle so that he could bind her arms together.

"Now mount Appelsin." Adrian helped the surly princess sling her leg over the horse, then wordlessly mounted himself. He cracked the reins, sending Appelsin trotting through the shrubs.

"What's your problem with Elsa?" asked Anna. After a few minutes of silence, she scowled and said, "Fine, don't tell me." More silence. "I don't think I saw a gag in that pouch of yours. That's too bad because I talk, like, a whole lot, especially when a crazy person's kidnapped me. Hardly ever stop. I hope I'm not bugging you am I bugging you because you know I'd hate to do that…"

They went on like that for a while, the only sound coming from the trot of the horse's hooves and the incessant chatter flying from Anna's mouth. After several long minutes, when they'd put a great deal of distance between themselves and Kristoff, the chatter finally stopped. Adrian allowed himself a small sigh of relief.

Then he heard a thud, followed by an "Oof."

Adrian halted his horse and spun in his saddle. Apparently, Anna had thrown herself off to make a run for it. Adrian sighed, dismounted, and effortlessly recaptured her.

"Don't try that again," he ordered, returning her to the horse.

"Wouldn't dream of it." Anna made a face, creasing her forehead and sticking out her tongue, but Adrian didn't react.

Appelsin resumed his gallop. Several more minutes passed. _Thud_. "Oof."

Adrian patiently wrestled Anna to the ground again.

"_Help! Someone help me!_" Anna screamed as loudly as she could – which happened to be extremely loud. It was a great source of personal pride for her. "_A crazy guy's kidnapped me and I'm the princess and stuff!_" She tried and failed to kick her captor between the legs.

"Save your breath." Adrian remained stoic as ever. "I doubt many other people are traveling through the wilderness in this heat wave."

Anna made the face again.

Adrian retrieved some more rope from his saddlebag and bound Anna's legs in the same manner as her arms, then slung her lengthwise over the side of the saddle.

After that, their travel was uninterrupted. Well, until it got interrupted.

_Thud_. "Oof."

Adrian halted the horse _again_ and spun in his saddle _again_. He stared in disbelief at the sight of Anna wiggling around in the grass like a drowned worm.

"Why did you do that?" he asked. "Your legs are bound. You have no chance of escape. It was pointless."

Anna made the face again.

Adrian yet again returned his captive to the horse. This time they lasted two whole minutes before he heard another _thud_ and "Oof."

"You're only prolonging this," said Adrian. Out came the face.

_Thud_. "Oof."

"All you're doing is bruising yourself from the fall."

Face. _Thud_. "Oof."

Adrian roughly deposited Anna into the saddle for the umpteenth time. For once, emotion seeped into his words. "Do that one more time, and I cut off a finger."

Anna didn't make the face this time.

After that, the two of them spent a whole half-hour without speaking. By this time, Appelsin had taken them out of the forest and into the fjords on the outskirts of Arendelle.

"We're almost to the lake," said Adrian. "Not much long-"

_Thud_. "Oof."

Adrian halted his horse, dismounted, and slowly walked towards the fallen Anna. The smallest twinge of irritation had entered his eyes. Anna responded with the rudest, most contorted face her muscles would allow.

Adrian ended up tying her to the back of the horse.

Another long while passed in silence, save for Appelsin snorting at the itchy rope around his belly. Eventually, the silence ended.

"Ouch, my finger," said Anna flatly. "The agony."

"Do you _want_ me to hurt you?" snapped Adrian.

"Y'know what I've been thinking?" Anna suddenly said. "You may be a huge jerk, but Kristoff said you used to be a nice guy. I don't think you wanted your goons to shoot him, and when they did, you called them off. And you said your rebellion was meant to fail, so you _knew_ Elsa wouldn't be hurt by it. I don't think you actually want to hurt anybody. You're bluffing!"

More silence. Adrian gazed up at the brilliant, red sky. "That's a beautiful sunset," he said. "I'd savor it, Princess Anna. It's your last."

More silence. "_It's your last!_" Anna repeated in a mockingly deep voice. "Ooh, I'm _so_ scared."

Actually, this was literally true. Anna's pulse was going a million miles an hour, and she could practically feel the adrenaline churning through her veins. In fact, Anna considered this whole ordeal to be the scariest thing she'd ever experienced in her entire life, except maybe for that little incident with Hans. She just didn't want Adrian to know that.

It was at this point that the horse finally arrived at the lake. The ice harvesters seemed to have gone home for the day, leaving nothing behind but some scattered equipment. Anna doubted the ice was quite as thick as the day Elsa refroze it, but it still looked pretty non-melted considering it was sweltering out.

Adrian dismounted and slung Anna over his shoulder. "Go home, Appelsin." The horse obediently trotted back over the hilltops. Next, Adrian set to work carrying his hostage over the lake, making sure to steer clear of the thinner regions. When he reached the center, he plopped the bound Anna onto the ice.

"Oh, what a scenic place to die!" Anna said with feigned cheer. "Any particular reason you bothered dragging me all the way out here?"

Adrian again gazed at the sunset.

"Ugh, you are so lame!" Anna was harboring this idea that maybe if she kept her mouth running, the crazy person wouldn't kill her. "At least the last bad guy who tried to kill me had the decency to monologue his evil plan first. Then I was all like, 'You won't get away with this!' and he was like, 'Oh, I already have! Mwah ha ha!'" No reaction from Adrian. Tough crowd. Anna was really having trouble getting a read of this guy. "Oh, wait. Don't tell me you're doing all of this just because you're mad Elsa froze the lake."

It was at this that Adrian finally turned around to look Anna in the eye.

"That has got to be the _dumbest_ motivation!" groaned Anna. "For the millionth time, Elsa's ice is _not_ poisonous!"

"Princess Anna," Adrian spoke up. "Look over there." He pointed to something a couple feet away from the bound girl – a tangled mess of meat and feathers lining a portion of the ice.

"What do a bunch of dead ducks have to do with anything?" Anna tried to seem apathetic, but her interest had been roused. Those birds weren't just dead – They looked like they'd been trampled by a team of horses.

"They were migrating," said Adrian. "Weren't expecting a frozen lake in the middle of spring. Tried to dive in the water. Didn't end well."

"Is it supposed to be Elsa's fault birds are stupid?" Anna huffed. "What are you, some kind of champion for ducks' rights?"

"Sometimes your sister hurts things without realizing it."

"Sure. And why did this make you decide to kill me or whatever you're planning on doing?"

"Does your sister care about you?" Adrian suddenly asked.

"Yes. Lots." Anna stuck her chin in the air. "More than anything."

"Then that's why." Adrian ceased meeting her eyes.

Dang it, Anna had been really hoping he'd go with the "whatever you're planning on doing" option.

"Oh, so you're just trying to spite Elsa?" she scoffed. "And you're willing to kill a defenseless, sinless little girl-" Adrian's eyebrows twitched. "-in cold blood just to be petty?"

"Yes." Adrian's stoic expression returned. "It's the only way to have retribution."

A thought struck Anna. "Oh! Are you the wight?"

Adrian was unfazed. "I don't know what that is."

"Some kinda creepy monster that has it in for Elsa."

Adrian took this in silently. "That's none of my concern," he said. "I never wanted any part of the magic that seems to grip this country."

"In that case, maybe you shouldn't be killing the beloved sister of the most powerful sorceress in Europe."

"It's too late now, princess. Much too late." A hand reached into the folds of Adrian's coat. It returned with an odd purple-colored sword made of some crystalline material.

Anna realized her eyes were fixating on its tip and quickly glanced away. "I hope you're not expecting me to give you the satisfaction of begging for my life."

"I receive no satisfaction from any of this," said Adrian. "Only deliverance."

"Anyone ever tell you you're a creep?"

Adrian took the blade in both hands, holding it level with its target. Despite her self-imposed haughtiness, Anna found herself gulping.

Adrian gave her a look Anna almost mistook for sympathy. "I'm sorry it has to be this way."

"Yippee. That makes it all so much better."

"Defiant to the end? I can respect that."

"Well, that's touching," Anna deadpanned. "Your respect means a lot to me."

Adrian's grip on the hilt tightened. He raised the sword a couple degrees into the air.

_Okay, new plan! New plan!_ Anna's mind was going fast enough to break the sound barrier. _Anna, you are gonna fast talk like you have never fast talked before, and by the time you're done talking, he won't kill you! Foolproof!_

The sword crept higher.

"So I've been thinking more about what I said earlier about you not wanting to hurt anyone!" she blurted out. "And, well, obviously you _do_ wanna hurt me, but, I mean, like, the last guy who tried to kill me was a complete jerk about it. He pretended to be nice, but he was a jerk. You, you're like, maybe the other way around? Maybe you're actually an okay guy, but you had a bad day and now you're overreacting?" For the first time, Anna looked at her captor with pity. "It's not too late to stop this. If you've got a problem with Elsa, you can talk about it."

Adrian looked over Anna's shoulder. His sword lowered. Well, only a couple inches, but it was a start.

"It can wait," he said.

"What can wait?"

"Killing you. It can wait until the queen gets here. I want her to watch."

It took a moment for the words to sink in. Anna slowly matched Adrian's gaze. Then she burst out laughing. "Oh man, _seriously?_ Wow, for a second there I thought my life was actually in danger!"

Her captor tensed and held his violet sword at the ready.

"Yeah, no, Elsa's not just gonna sit here and watch you kill me," smirked Anna. "Hallelujah! I'm practically saved already!"

What they were both looking at was, of course, a palace horse galloping full-speed towards the lake, and atop it was what appeared to be a sky-blue knight that shimmered in the sunlight. The horse halted at the lake's edge so its rider could dismount and sprint towards them. The knight's every footfall left the ice more solid.

"About time," Adrian said under his breath.

"_My sis-ter's go-nna kick your butt!_" sang Anna.

* * *

The horse had left a trail of frost behind it as it galloped. It would've brought back bad memories of _that_ night... had Elsa actually noticed it. But she didn't. She didn't notice the fact that she was leaving a trail of ice, the fact that she'd forgotten to saddle her horse, or even the fact that she still had on her ice-armor. The only thought going through her head was the single, reoccurring statement that had plagued her nightmares since she was eight:

_Anna is dead._

Elsa pictured waking up, going about her daily routine of brushing her teeth, bathing, heading down to the dining hall for breakfast… with no Anna waiting for her at the table. Being trapped in another dull council meeting… with no Anna to look forward to. Living every day, over and over, for the rest of her life, running the country and waking up and going to bed and caring about anything… with no feisty young princess there to join her and laugh with her and hold her and love her.

Nope. Nope, nope, nope. Unacceptable. Not happening.

This was all Elsa's fault. How could she have been so stupid? She'd actually ordered a bodyguard for _herself_ and let Anna leave the castle whenever she wanted. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Even though she'd only ridden out here once before, Elsa managed to find the lake without paying much attention to where she was going. Even at a distance, she could make out the shape of her sister, who was kneeling before another figure she couldn't quite discern.

Elsa's imagination filled in the gaps. Hans, getting revenge? Her father, punishing Elsa for daring to leave her room? The wight, a formless mass of shadows in Elsa's mind, the embodiment of the senseless carnage that sunk ships without warning?

Elsa jumped off her horse and bolted across the lake, stopping mere feet from Anna's assailant. She was having another nightmare. She was on the frozen lake, and the man wielding the sword wasn't Papa and it wasn't Hans and it wasn't the wight.

"You! That ice-cutter… Adrian?" It only held Elsa's interest for a moment. After all, it didn't really matter who he was. He was holding a sword to her sister's throat all the same.

"Elsa?" Her impending death didn't seem to have much of an effect on Anna's attitude. "You look awesome!"

Elsa raised both her arms. "Hand over Anna. Unharmed. _Now_." Her teeth hurt from grinding together so hard. Thinking straight was a struggle, but this wouldn't be hard – There were about a million different ways to stop this lunatic. She could make a wall between him and Anna, she could case his torso in ice...

Adrian glanced from Elsa to the violet blade resting beneath his hostage's chin. "No."

A bolt of frost promptly hurdled towards Adrian's arms, but before it could reach its target, a distortion passed through the air. When it faded, the magic was gone.

"Wait," said Anna blankly. "What just happened?"

Elsa blinked, dazed. "What on earth-?" She fired another bolt, but it had the same effect.

"You didn't think I'd face you without protection, did you?" said Adrian.

Elsa screamed and hurled an entire wave of magic at Adrian's head, but the sword immediately sent out a distortion in the air that evaporated it on contact. Next, Elsa tried to direct her magic at the ground beneath Adrian's feet. She'd frozen the lake, meaning she could just as easily unfreeze it and send him tumbling into the water. But as it neared him, the magic leaped out of the ground and into the blade like light to a black hole.

And Elsa had thought her heart had been pumping fast _before_. There- There was no upper limit to how much snow she could make, at least as far as she knew. Maybe she could overpower the sword?

"All that magic, and it all it takes is one little trinket to render it worthless," said Adrian. "Almost seems too easy."

And then he didn't say anything else because Elsa brought the winter down on his head.

Every single snowstorm from the violent blizzards of the north to the continent-spanning climates of unforgiving ice from billions of years ago, all the freezing wind that ever was and ever will be, every last tundra, glacier, snowflake, _all of it_ was called towards one compact, person-sized target. It was hard to describe. "Really bad snowstorm" didn't quite do it justice.

This wasn't Elsa's powers going out of control again. It was nowhere near the same thing as covering Arendelle in snow after fleeing the coronation. This was a precise, deliberate act of sorcery. The ice was going exactly where the Snow Queen wanted it to – It was even arcing directly around Anna, not so much as nipping her nose. Had any of the cold actually reached Adrian's skin, it would have been the closest a human being could get to absolute zero.

The problem was, when the frost-cloud settled several minutes later, Adrian was glaringly un-frozen. The only change was that the sword in his hands was now crackling with energy, vibrating in place, and glowing bright white.

Adrian scowled. "Are you done yet?"

For the first time since standing up to the rebels, fear overtook Elsa's face. "Adrian, wait!" she called out, her voice shaking. "You- You can't do this! Your rebellion failed! The palace will arrest you-"

"Queen Elsa, I never expected that rebellion to succeed," cut in Adrian. "It was only ever meant to distract you. Maybe rile you up a bit. And as for my arrest, I will gladly surrender myself to your custody as soon as I'm finished here." He pressed the glowing blade tighter against Anna's neck. Anna, for once, was stone still and silent, save for her thunderous heartbeat.

"Don't do this, Adrian!" Elsa's voice was uncharacteristically shrill. She took a tentative step forward.

"Don't come any closer!" Adrian yelled. "Stay where you are and I'll give you time to say goodbye."

Anna tried to twist her head, but it was difficult with the sword in the way. "What is _wrong_ with you?"

Elsa was paralyzed. Her mind was racing for answers to this problem, but she didn't like a single one it presented. Elsa closed her eyes. "Okay, Adrian," she said quietly. "You win. Just… just let Anna go. It's me you want."

"Elsa, no, don't-" Anna tried to say, but her kidnapper cut her off.

"Wrong again, girl. I never wanted to kill you. I want you alive. I want you to live every day for the rest of your life without _her_." He eyed the girl quivering beneath his sword.

Somehow, Elsa's mind was racing faster yet covering less distance. All she could think to say was, "Why? Why are you doing this? Have I hurt you somehow? Please, I've never wanted my powers to hurt anyone! Whatever it is, I can make it up to you!"

Adrian bowed his head. "There's only one way to make it up to me." He was clenching the hilt so hard, his knuckles were white. "You don't _get_ to have a family anymore."

"_Please, __God,__ no!_ Anna's innocent!"

"That's the point." Adrian moved his eyes away from the sisters. "You might want to hurry up with that goodbye. I'm getting impatient."

Elsa watched Anna with the face of a eight-year-old girl watching her sister's cold body fall to the ballroom floor. "Anna, I… I don't know what to-"

"Shh… Elsa, listen to me." Anna's face was serene. Peaceful, somehow. "You're gonna be okay, Elsa."

"_Anna, no__!_ I can't do this! I can't do this without you!" The tears were coming. Elsa fixed her gaze back on Adrian. "_Please__!_ Please, you can't, she means everything to me! She's all I have! I don't even know what I did to hurt you!"

Adrian stood still. He seemed to be thoroughly examining Elsa's face, taking in every minute change. "You will." The sword rose into the air.

_You're not breathing right._

"_Stop it__!_" Elsa was hysteric. "_I'll do anything! Anything you want__!_"

The sword halted. Adrian regarded Elsa carefully. After a while, he said, "Beg."

"Wuh-What?" Elsa wiped her eyes.

"Beg for her."

There was silence on the frozen lake. The sun felt hot on Elsa's face.

"Elsa, don't you dare-" But Anna hardly had time to protest. Her sister immediately dropped to the ground, hands and knees.

"Please. Oh God, _please…_"

There was something in Adrian's eyes resembling satisfaction. He started to lower his blade.

For maybe a fraction of a second, hope crossed Elsa's face. Just the tiniest sliver of it. And when he saw it, when he was certain it was there, _that's_ when Adrian swung the sword at Anna's neck.

Elsa screamed. Every last tendril of her magic instantly shot in Adrian's direction. But, of course, the sword was enchanted. No matter how much of it there was, magically-generated ice was powerless to halt its path.

_Clang._


	14. Not a Murderer

Now, magically-generated _water_ was a different story.

The sword hit the ground with a _clang_ and skidded across the ice. Even the frozen surface its edge scraped across was unharmed. Apparently, without a wielder, the magic blade was just a regular hunk of rock. And right now, the only candidate for wielding happened to be several feet away. That was several feet of distance that had to be covered without protection from Elsa's powers.

Adrian looked like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

Anna slowly opened her eyes and felt around her neck. Yep, her head was definitely still attached. She looked up at Elsa.

Elsa seemed just as shocked as Adrian. Her palms were like tiny waterfalls – pure, clean liquid gushed out of them and pooled at her feet. Elsa collected herself enough to send a thin whip of water towards Anna with enough force and precision to brake her restraints.

"Elsa, you did it!" With her limbs freed, Anna immediately ran to Elsa. "You finally made-" A jet stream shot past her ear. "-water."

Adrian was sent tumbling in much the same fashion as his sword.

"_Not my sister__!_" No tranquility in Elsa's voice this time. "_You don't touch her! You don't touch her_!" Adrian made an effort to return to his feet, but another water-blast quickly took care of that.

Somehow, even with her life was no longer in danger, Anna's heartbeat hadn't slowed. She watched, transfixed, as a wave of Elsa's arms turned nearly half the lake's surface back into water. Adrian splashed into the pool alongside his sword.

"_Not my sister__!_" Another gesture caused the water to suck Adrian downwards. He was under for several seconds before emerging, gagging and coughing. "_Not! My! Sister!_" Elsa gave him maybe two seconds to breathe before repeating the process. Adrian was again strong enough to resist the magically-created downward current and surface for air.

Elsa raised her arms again... and was tackled to the ground.

"_S__top it__!_" Anna pinned her the arms. She was almost shocked at how light and frail Elsa was.

"You don't understand, Anna!" Elsa's voice was shaking. "It's him or you!"

"_My sister is __not__ a murderer_!"

Both girls held that pose for a while, taking shallow breaths.

"Elsa, please," Anna said faintly. "We won. We can put him in jail."

"Okay. Okay…" Elsa clamped her eyes shut, breathing shallowly. "You're right."

The girls returned to their feet and watched over the liquid half of the lake. Adrian was above water and breathing, but he was also wounded, weighed down by his soaking wet clothes, and far from solid land.

A flourish of Elsa's hand sent magic his way. She made another stream of liquid water, but when it landed in the lake, it was solid, like her magic had flipped back to normal settings. The ice was shaped like a life preserver, complete with a rope of ice-cloth extending to Elsa's hand.

"Grab on!" she called out.

Adrian slowly turned his head towards Elsa's creation. The ring-shaped ice bobbed cheerily. He had a look on his face not unlike disgust. Adrian raised an arm out of the water, and both girls' eyes widened. The violet sword was back in his hand – Adrian must have retrieved it while underwater. In one swift motion, he brought it down on the ice-buoy, vaporizing it instantly. After that, Adrian allowed himself to go limp and vanish beneath the freezing water.

The sisters stood for a while, staring at the lake's calm surface.

"Oh my God." Elsa's voice was a whisper. "Did I just kill-?"

"No! No angsting!" Anna caught her off guard by grabbing her shoulders. "That guy tried to kill me. You saved me, and you tried to save him, too. He drowned himself on purpose. There's nothing you could've done about it."

Elsa bowed her head. "I... I guess you're right."

"I _know_ I'm right."

"But… why did he do any of this? He seemed like he had a personal vendetta against me."

"Ugh! I don't know why crazy people are crazy!" Anna threw her hands in the air. "He probably got dropped on his head as a baby, same as Hans. Man, I am _so sick_ of wackos swinging swords at me…"

Elsa took one last tentative glance towards the thawed portion of the lake, but it remained motionless. She and Anna turned to walk away.

"Thanks for saving my life, by the way," added Anna. "Guess now we're even." She gave Elsa a playful punch on the arm.

"Yeah. Sure." Anna's enthusiasm was contagious. A small smile worked its way across Elsa's cheeks.

"You were awesome back there," said Anna. "I knew you'd come save me, but I wasn't expecting that ice-armor!"

"Oh yeah." Elsa self-consciously ran a hand over the icy plates. "Actually, I feel a little silly wearing this."

"What are you talking about? That armor's sexier than your ice-dress."

Elsa laughed. "I think some people would disagree with you on that."

"I wish _I_ had armor. Bet I'd look great in it."

The sisters were walking over the dangerously thin part of the lake, but with each of Elsa's footfalls, they grew safer and safer.

"And you made water, too!" Anna remembered. "See, I knew you could do it. You just had to learn to deal with heat, didn't you?"

"Well, yes, but…" Elsa held out her palm, but the most she could conjure was some scattered slush. "I can already feel it leaving me. Making water… wasn't the same as making ice. I can't describe it exactly, but it was like something snapped inside of me, and now it's back into place."

"Whatever," shrugged Anna. "We'll figure it out later. The important thing is you did it right when it really counted. Did you see that jerk's face when-?" But Anna was interrupted by Elsa wrapping her arms around her. "Hey, is everything okay?"

"I'm just glad you're alive," Elsa said, her voice shaking.

"I'm glad I'm alive too."

Elsa grinned. Now there were some teeth Anna hadn't seen nearly enough of.

"Your Majesty!"

The sisters were taken out of the moment by a squad of guards galloping towards them on horseback.

"We're alright!" Elsa called out to them. "I- I did it. She's safe."

Anna gave her a look. "Why didn't the guards help you out back there?"

"Oh. I-" Elsa shrank, her cheeks reddening. "I grabbed a horse and ran off without telling them. I, err... might have been a bit overconfident in my abilities."

"Well, how were you supposed to know Adrian had an ice-eating sword?" scoffed Anna. "Heck, come to think of it, why _did_ he have an ice-eating sword?"

Elsa's eyes wandered back towards the lake's still surface. "That's what I'd like to know."

* * *

A tiny brown squirrel scurried about the thicket of trees at the edge of the lake. It had jumped once or twice at the sounds of water gushing and voices yelling, but other than that, it remained pleasantly oblivious to the problems of those weird, pink, hairless things.

The squirrel also remained oblivious to the thin, black fingers creeping from the bush right until they wrapped themselves around it. It squeaked and thrashed, but it couldn't break free. The squirrel even tried to claw and bite its captor, but the hand's blackened flesh tasted cold, and it didn't budge no matter how hard the squirrel attacked.

"Still… alive?" The squirrel didn't have much of a grasp on language, but the voice made it shudder. "All that work _wasted__!_"

The wight dangled the squirrel by its tail and brought it level to his face. "The sword's at the bottom of the lake now, and I can't fish it out. Getting wet makes my bones ache! Grr… Do you realize how hard it was to get that sword? I had to break into the catacombs of Brandr the Cryomancer-Slayer! And my new pal Adrian's no doubt a waterlogged old corpse by now. How am I supposed to kill Anna without him?"

The squirrel didn't reply – It wasn't much of a conversationalist – but the wight nodded his head and said, "Yes, yes, you're right, I _could_ hide under her bed and come out when she's asleep, but the death has to _mean_ something. I need to teach our dear Snow Queen a lesson, and for that to happen, I need to kill our worst enemy without Elsa seeing her as a martyr. Ugh, now I need to come up with a brand new plan from scratch." The wight let out a huff of frustration. "This is why I hate you, Anna. You didn't even let her kill him like she was supposed to."

For a second, the squirrel managed to worm its way out of his grasp, but the wight readily caught it with his other hand. "I need to go think about this," he decided. "Need to rest. All this stress makes me hungry…"

The squirrel's frantic squeaks grew louder, then silent.

* * *

"I can't believe they're really gone…" The gallery was unrecognizable – nothing but dark ash where there were supposed to be exquisite paintings. "I know it sounds stupid, but… I used to talk to them when…" Anna brought a hand to her eyes. "Y'know, when there was no one else… around. They were my friends."

Elsa gave her what must've been the dozenth hug they'd shared since returning to the palace. "I know," she said, "and I'm sorry. If I'd just acted sooner…"

"No, no, it's fine." Anna forced herself to stop crying. "It's just stuff. The important thing is no one got hurt."

"Yeah… Well, at least one picture survived." Elsa pointed to a spot on the wall. All the wood and wallpaper around it had been turned completely black, but somehow, a lone painting had escaped the fire.

"Joan!" Anna looked like she'd seen a friend come back from the dead. She immediately dashed over to put her arms on the charred wall beneath the frame in a hug of sorts.

"I don't know how it made it," said Elsa. "I guess I put the fires out just in time."

Suddenly, Anna giggled.

"What?" asked Elsa.

"It's kind of fitting, don't you think?" said Anna. "Everything burned _except_ her."

"…I don't get it."

"Nevermind."

Unlike Joan, Elsa was now back in a dress, alongside a fresh pair of ice-heels to replace the ones she'd tossed during the chaos. This came as quite a relief to her – That armor had been _very_ uncomfortable. Well, actually, the high heels weren't much better, but at least she was used to those.

There wasn't much else to say after that. The sisters walked out of the gallery and down the halls, which were as scorched and deformed as the rest of the castle. Elsa thought back to how she'd been chased down the flaming halls mere hours ago, but somehow, with her sister at her side, it didn't seem as scary anymore.

Elsa took her by the arm. "I love you."

Anna gave a coy smile. "And I love you, too, _of course_."

That was one good thing that came out of tragedies, Elsa thought. They made you appreciate what you had.

"Oh! Oh! Elsa! I've got it!" Anna suddenly said as they continued down the halls. "I know a way you can use your powers to help people. You can fight crime! Think about it! It'd be the awesomest…"

Elsa rolled her eyes. Okay, so she didn't have to appreciate _everything_ her sister said.

* * *

There was a small island exactly halfway between Arendelle and the Southern Isles that made the most fantastic prison. The two nations had worked out a shaky deal to share the land – more out of convenience than solidarity – and while Elsa had never seen it herself, the warden had personally assured her it wasn't a fun place to live. Fortunately, ever since her parents' reign, there hadn't been many occasions to dust it off. In fact, Elsa had been planning to never send anyone there.

But she was willing to make some exceptions.

The Admiral and his men were marched across the lamp-lit pier in handcuffs. Most of them still had bits of ice in their hair and on their clothes, and at least one had an entire foot frozen in a block. The non-traitorous guards had scraped them out while Elsa was off rescuing her sister, and Elsa had "forgotten" to dispel their ice.

The Admiral paused his forced-march at the end of the dock.

"Onto the boat," ordered a guard, prodding him in the back with his spear.

The Admiral scowled. "We'll see how condescending you are when _I'm_ in heaven."

Just then, the royal sisters entered the pier, and the guards stopped to bow. The Admiral's scowl deepened.

The sisters traded glances. Then, Elsa pointed right at him and said, "That one." Anna made a bee-line for the Admiral.

"Oh?" he smirked. "And to what do I owe this pleas-?"

_Crack._

The Admiral hit the floor. He looked like he wanted to call Anna some really nasty names, but his jaw wasn't working.

"That was from Mom and Dad." Anna spat on him.

The guards ended up having to drag the Admiral onto the boat kicking and screaming.

"Well, I can mark that off my bucket list," said Anna cheerily, walking back to her sister. "So does everyone just call that guy 'the Admiral?' Doesn't he have, like, an actual name?" Elsa shrugged.

"I can't believe I was so scared of him that I nearly let the castle burn down," she said. "But, you know, it was your advice that helped me deal with my fears. Like you said, sometimes it's not about being brave, it's about not wanting your loved ones hurt more than not wanting yourself hurt."

"What?" frowned Anna. "I never said that."

"Really? Nevermind, then…" Elsa looked lost in thought.

After another few minutes, the prison-ship finally departed. The sisters sat at the pier for a while, watching it shrink into the distance under the northern lights.

"_Bon voyage__!_" Anna called after it. "Have fun in jail! Send Hans our love!"

* * *

"Aaaaagh!" Elsa was cornered, a wall of fire on one end, a mob of angry men on the other.

"Prepare to die, Snow Queen!" yelled the Admiral, raising his sword dramatically. "Mwah ha ha ha!"

"Ohhhh, I'm _too scared_ to use my powers!" Elsa cowered, weeping. "If only there was someone big and strong to come to my rescue!"

Just as the rebels were about to strike, a deep, confident voice shouted, "Leave Queen Elsa alone!" Out of nowhere, a horse landed between the mob and Elsa, and riding atop it was a man twice as tall and thrice as muscular as any of the rebels.

"Oh nooooo!" said the Admiral.

The tall, dark stranger did a backflip off his horse and quickly dispatched of the attackers with his bare hands.

"Ohhhh Fritz!" Elsa swooned, then wrapped her arms around her savior. "That was SO manly!"

"Well, when you're a fine physical specimen like myself, that kind of thing comes easy," said Fritz, flexing his vast collection of muscles.

"You saved my life." Her face moved closer to his. "How could I ever repay you?" It moved closer… and closer…

"Are you awake?"

Like a bubble popping, Fritz opened his eyes to find himself lying in bed. He seemed to be in the castle infirmary, but he was having trouble realizing this because thinking made his head throb. Fritz reached up and felt his forehead. Bandages.

It all came flooding back. The mob. The fire. Getting punched really hard in the face. His brain must not have been fully healed, though, because Fritz's initial though was, _I'm dead_.

"I'm glad to see you're okay," said a wonderful, wonderful voice. It was Elsa, and she was standing at his bedside, and she was looking directly at him.

_Is this… heaven?_

_Well, given the thoughts going through your head concerning the queen, that's probably too much to expect_, said the part of Fritz's brain devoted to insulting himself.

_Oh no_, realized Fritz. _I'm not _dead_. I'm _dying_!__ These are my last moments on Earth!_

_You're absolutely right!_ said all the morphine in Fritz's system. _Now's your last chance. You have to tell her how you feel! There can't be any consequences if you're dead!_

Fritz tried to say, "I love you, Queen Elsa!" but all that came out was, "Ahwuvyuhmmphmuuuur…" Huh, his tongue seemed much heavier than normal.

_Fine, take it to the grave. But at least say something poignant and romantic before you expire._

"You…" said Fritz, navigating his tongue carefully, "You were my new…" But then he had to stop to cough up some phlegm. Elsa took a few steps back from the bed.

"Listen, we need to talk," she said.

_Talk?_ This jump-started Fritz's brain into alertness. Talking was what girls did when they wanted to confess their feelings for you! Talking was the first step towards marriage, which was the first step towards making babies, which-

"As you might remember, the castle was just attacked," said Elsa sternly. "The rebels slipped past our defenses because a large portion of the guards turned traitor… and _every single one_ had been recently put on the staff by the Admiral."

Fritz gulped.

"With one exception," continued Elsa. "One new guard actually stood up to the rebels, though he was quickly beaten unconscious."

Dang it! Whoever that guy was, Elsa probably liked him and not Fritz!

"But the rebels also used fire in an attempt to scare me." Elsa's eyes narrowed. "And my sister assured me she never told a soul about my phobia."

It took Fritz's mind a few seconds to connect the dots. Uh oh. He had a bad feeling being blamed for the castle getting set on fire would hurt his chances with Elsa.

"Is there anything you would like to tell me?" Elsa sounded like a mother scolding her child.

Fritz gulped again. He was starting to wish he really _had_ been dying.

"I didn't know about any rebellion!" he got out, his voice cracking. "Nobody ever tells me anything! I don't know why that Admiral guy hired me! I don't-" And then it struck him. Why would _anyone_ do something overtly nice for Fritz? "To be honest, Your Majesty, I think… I think maybe the Admiral just hired me so he could laugh behind my back." He bowed his head, though it hurt to move under all those bandages.

Elsa folded her arms. "And the time the Admiral took you out?"

"He… got me drunk," Fritz admitted, his face flushing. "I don't even remember it too well, but that's probably when I… told them about your, err, reactions to fire."

Elsa let out a sigh. "So you were never _intentionally_ helping them?"

"What? No! I wouldn't! I love you! _T__he crown_, I mean! I love the crown. I am _so loyal_ to the monarchy."

Another sigh. Elsa didn't look particularly happy with Fritz, but he didn't think she was going to hang him for treason anymore, so that was a step in the right direction.

"Anything else you have to say?"

Okay, time to bite the bullet, Fritz decided. He pulled himself halfway out of the covers, took a deep breath, and said, "I… I guess I'm turning in my resignation."

Elsa raised an eyebrow.

"I've been a pretty terrible bodyguard." For the first time, Fritz's voice wasn't squeaky. It was somber. "I'm pretty sure I was only hired as a joke by the Admiral. That's all I am… a stupid joke… You deserve better. You need a bodyguard who won't screw everything up…"

Maybe it was just the morphine, but Fritz could feel his tear ducts readying.

"It's… It's fine… I was pretty much expecting to fail at this job anyways… I mean, I've failed at everything else I've ever tried… Used to it…" He sniffed loudly.

_And now you're bawling in front of the girl you like, _said the insulting-part of Fritz's brain. _Very macho. I'm sure she's impressed._

Fritz flipped over on the mattress. He couldn't bear to look at the object of his affection's face right now and see her doubtlessly disgusted, condescending grimace.

"Too much of a wimp to herd reindeer," Fritz ranted between sobs. "Too stupid to get an education… Can't hold down a job… Sometimes I don't even do anything wrong… World just barges in and makes rebels punch me in the face… makes the stable door break so the reindeer can escape… makes my dad get on a boat one day and never come back…" He buried his face in his sleeve. All that crying was making his head injury throb again.

"I'm sorry," said Elsa quietly.

It dawned on Fritz what he had just said. He nearly tore a ligament in his struggle to remove his foot from his mouth. "No no no, I didn't mean it like that! His boat didn't sink like the one with your mom and your dad and a bunch of other people on it did! He just left!" He faltered. "I, uh, I don't think he loved my momma or me very much."

"I see." Elsa turned her attention towards staring at the wall.

_Good going, Romeo,_ said that part of Fritz's brain.

"I… I guess my dad thought I was a loser, too."

Without warning, Fritz felt something cold touch his arm. All his self-pitying sobs came to an abrupt halt.

"You're not a loser," said Elsa.

Fritz would have been slightly less awestruck if the second coming of Jesus had just happened.

"And I wouldn't have anyone else as my bodyguard." She flashed him a smile.

Fritz's tongue was feeling heavy again. "Oh, uh, Queen Elsa, no- I- I couldn't! You need better than me. You should just fire me and hire a stronger boyfr- _bodyguard__!_"

Elsa's smile widened. "I mean, I don't want to tell anyone else, so I really have no one else to talk to about my nightmares, now do I?"

Fritz felt weak at the knees, and he wasn't even standing up. Was he having an… an actual conversation with Elsa? It was like something out of his wildest fantasies. Her hand was still touching his arm. When Fritz's eyes lingered, Elsa slowly removed it. The sleeve felt cold from where the palm had pressed against it. Fritz was never washing this uniform again.

"You know what?" said Elsa. "I don't think I ever got your name."

He opened his mouth to tell her, but then he realized he couldn't remember it, either. After a pause lasting just long enough to be awkward, he got out, "Fritz." Then he added, "I mean, uh, well, that's my first name, but I guess you should call me Gudmund since you're my superior and we need to stay formal. In fact, should I even be calling you 'Queen Elsa?' Because I can switch to your last name if that makes you less uncomfortable- I mean, uh, more comfortable. Not that I make people un… uh… I have a middle name, too – Do you even _have_ a last name? – It's Herman! Wait, what?"

As Fritz was vomiting out words, Elsa turned to walk out the door and into another section of the infirmary. "I need to go check on somebody else now."

_You scared her away,_ said the self-loathing center of Fritz's brain. _I guess that was pretty inevitable._

But right before closing the door behind her, Elsa hesitated, then turned back around. "I thought you were _very_ brave, Fritz." The door closed.

Fritz spent the next five hours staring at the ceiling, engaged in a lengthy internal debate over whether or not this was a sign she was into him. Pity, he eventually decided. It was definitely pity.

But Fritz had learned that sometimes in life, you had to take what you could get.


	15. Can't Forget Ever

For years, Elsa had thought losing control of her powers was the most frightening thing that could ever happen to her. She'd been wrong. She was controlling them perfectly – every drop of water was going exactly where she intended. But she was still killing him.

The man tried to break the lake's surface, tried to fill his lungs with something besides liquid, but Elsa wouldn't allow it. She could sense all the lake's water as if it were touching her skin. She could feel the exact moment the man's struggles ceased. The way his limp body slowly drifted to the lake-bed.

Someone was tackling her. Elsa's arms were pinned.

"You really are a monster." It was Anna. "And here I thought I loved you."

Elsa awoke to find every inch of her bedroom covered in ice. No surprises there. Her bodyguard – _Fritz_, she reminded herself – was still in the infirmary. Nobody to wake her when she started to toss and turn.

Elsa ought to have fallen back asleep easily. The previous day had been a marathon of filling out paperwork, enduring a sweltering courtyard, engaging in a snowball fight, running from rebels, beating the snot out of rebels, rescuing Anna, and then returning home to stay up late into the night dealing with the repercussions of having her castle set on fire. By all right, Elsa should've drifted off the instant her head hit the pillow.

But closing her eyes was enough to make the nightmares flash through her brain again.

Elsa's eyelids protested as she wrenched them open. The world looked as black as when they were closed. That meant she couldn't have been asleep more than an hour or two. Despite her every impulse telling her otherwise, Elsa forced herself out of the covers, unfroze the ice she'd made, and then headed out past the empty mirror frame and broken doorway.

Elsa wandered aimlessly down the lamp-lit halls. Usually, the huge castle was the perfect place for aimless wandering, but at the moment a good portion of it was roped-off thanks to fire damage. Elsa ended up somewhere near the kitchens, which had escaped mostly unscathed, but she didn't take in her surroundings until a strange smacking noise snapped her into alertness. Her curiosity getting the better of her, Elsa poked her head through the doorway

"Anna?" She gave a start. "What are you doing up?"

Anna was seated at a table, her hair somewhere halfway between the beauty of its pre-sleeping form and the pandemonium of its post-waking form. Before her was a plate piled high with chocolate pieces, which her hand was paused halfway towards. Anna stared at Elsa for several long seconds, her lips painted brown and cheeks puffed like a chipmunk's, before swallowing in one big gulp.

"Nothing," said Anna.

This situation wasn't exactly atypical of Anna, but what did surprise Elsa was that Anna hadn't snuck in alone this time. A maid was hovering over her shoulder.

"Gerda? You know Anna's not supposed to be late-night snacking!"

"Queen Elsa, forgive me, I meant no harm!" Gerda said, flustered. "The princess was simply upset, and I was letting her have a little treat to calm down-"

Anna shot Gerda a "shut up" glare.

"I'm totally fine," Anna assured Elsa. "I was just pigging out. You know me. I'm a bad girl! Gerda was trying to stop me, but I was too feisty and rebellious for her."

"I see. Well, in that case…" Elsa leaned in to whisper something to Gerda. Gerda nodded, then exited the room. Elsa seated herself in the chair beside Anna, taking a generous helping of the chocolate for herself. "Are you sure you're okay, Anna?"

"Yeah, of course!" Anna put on a big, showy grin. "You don't have to worry about me, Elsa. I always stay up late. I'll make up for it by sleeping in tomorrow. And I only came in here because I was bored. Kristoff's still in the infirmary, and he didn't want to visit with me. He wanted to _sleep_!" She threw her hands in the air indignantly. "Can you believe him?"

"Well, considering it's half-past midnight-"

"So what? I'm not-" A yawn escaped Anna's mouth. "-not the least bit tired."

"Anna." Elsa placed a hand over hers. "What were you upset about?"

"Mmm, this chocolate is good-"

"_Anna_."

"Okay, okay!" Anna stared at her feet. "I just… had a stupid dream, that's all."

"And what happened in this 'stupid dream?'"

"Well," started Anna, "I was riding on Sven in a thunderstorm, and then he, like, took off, and we flew through the clouds, and then lightning hit me and I died and it was scary. That's all. Honest to God."

"I see." Elsa met her sister's eyes. "Know why I was up?" Anna shook her head. "I was having nightmares. Well, I've been having them just about every night, really. Ever since I froze your head. I'm sorry I never told you before. I guess I didn't want you to worry. But I see now that I was wrong to do that. You care about me, and you would do anything to help me, but you can't if I'm not open with you." Elsa gave Anna a meaningful look.

"What kind of nightmares?" Anna asked quietly.

Elsa closed her eyes. For once, she deliberately allowed the images to spring to mind. "Usually, they're about killing someone by accident, but tonight, they were about killing someone on purpose." She placed her other hand on Anna's. "Anna, I am _so glad_ you stopped me from killing Adrian. Everything you said was absolutely right, and I could never live with myself if my powers did that to anyone. But I let myself get so scared and upset because I… I really thought I was going to lose you, and I couldn't… couldn't..." Her voice trembled. "Anna, you're the best part of my life, and I will _never_ let anyone take you from me." Elsa had honestly thought she was going to tear up before she could finish, but she surprised herself by keeping her voice even.

It was Anna who burst out crying.

"_I'm sorry I lied my nightmare wasn't really about that__!_"

Elsa was almost shocked. She'd figured Anna was more upset than she'd let on, but the only other time Elsa had heard her lose it like _this_ was on the other side of a locked door three years ago. "Shh, Anna, it's okay, I'm here-"

Anna didn't wait to be asked before throwing her arms around her sister and burying her face in her shoulder. "I was dreaming about being with Hans and I know he's a jerk but sometimes in my dreams I forget and then he turned into Adrian and he had a sword and- and-" Anna's shoulders were heaving. "I saw a man drown right in front of me. _It-was-the-worst-thing-I've-eh-eh-ever-seen._"

Elsa hugged her sister as tightly as she could. She wished it could've been tighter.

"I haven't really been happy since that guy kidnapped me. I was pretending."

"I know," said Elsa.

"I didn't want to make you worried."

"I know." A wry smile crossed her face. "But someone once showed me that concealing how you feel isn't the best way to handle things."

Anna nodded.

It was at this point that Gerda returned to the kitchen. She carried a tray, resting on which were two cups.

"Thank you." Elsa gave Gerda a polite nod, then eagerly grabbed her drink off the tray. Anna, however, was silent, her face staying blank even as Gerda set her drink before her.

Elsa frowned. "Anna, I know you loved the portraits we lost in the fire, but if you want, we can get new ones. You can pick them all out yourself."

"Yeah… Yeah, let's do that." Anna seemed to perk up at this (Elsa was in for a gallery full of only the most surreal paintings on the market).

"It's a shame about the portraits," spoke up Gerda. "Those thugs made sure to hit nearly all your family paintings, and, you know, some of those can't be replaced…" The sisters both winced. Gerda had danced around using the "p" word. "We'll have to find a new court painter, too. The poor man..."

"Mmm." Elsa made a noncommittal grunt and took a sip of her drink.

That was when Anna noticed the steam rising out of it. Her eyes widened, and she quickly peered into her own cup. Yep, milky brown liquid.

"Hey!" She grinned, the last few traces of angst evaporating. "Why on earth would you want to have the absolute worst chocolate ever?"

Elsa looked pleased with herself. "I was wrong. It's not bad – it just takes some getting used to, that's all."

"Yeah… That or you used your powers to cool it down."

"Well, you're not _supposed_ to drink it scalding."

"Whatever you say, _cheater_."

* * *

"Sir, I insist you return to your bed! The doctor said-"

"I don't care! I want to see my reindeer!"

"Well, you can't venture to the stables in your condition-"

"Then bring _Sven_ up _here._"

"I think, sir, I might see it lit on fire again before I allow a pack animal into this castle."

The infirmary entryway was blocked by a tired and overworked butler. Standing across from him was a large boy with a head of unmanly blond hair and a cast covering his leg. Kristoff had been there when Sven woke up every morning since they were both little, and he wasn't about to let some silly arrow wound end that trend.

Olaf was there too, hanging out near Anders's feet. Ever since they'd bonded during the rebellion, Anders had been marginally less disdainful towards him, which Olaf had taken as a sign that Anders never wanted him to leave his presence.

"C'mon, the last time Sven saw me, I was on a stretcher!" Kristoff said. "He probably spent the night scared to death. And besides, I need to make sure he's okay. I don't trust the castle's fancy-pants horse doctors to patch him up right."

"Sir, I am reasonably certain the animal will survive not being in your constant presence," Anders said tightly. "We can get you a crutch as soon as the doctor's finished with you. Now please sit back down and refrain from worsening your injury. If her boyfriend becomes a paraplegic on my watch, the princess will be quite cross with me."

"Ooh! Ooh! I have an idea!" Olaf raised a stick-arm into the air. "I can go visit Sven for you and tell him you're okay."

"Yes! Do that!" Anders immediately said.

"And then I'll come back and let you know what Sven says."

"You do know Sven can't really talk, right?" said Kristoff. "It's just me doing ventriloquism."

Olaf's snow-jaw dropped. "The… The world seemed so simple before this moment…" He walked off to the stables, overwhelmed with wonder.

"Well, now that that's taken care of, I'd best be going." Anders turned to leave, straightening his dress jacket. "I have had quite enough excitable teenagers for one-"

"_Kristoff_, you're awake!" Anna burst into the room and ran to give her boyfriend a big hug. Anders grumbled something about "kids these days," then slinked out the door.

Elsa entered the infirmary after her sister. For once, she had joined Anna in sleeping in. After the events of the previous day, Elsa was entitled to that at least.

"Good to see you two in high spirits after yesterday's little fiasco," said Kristoff. "Man, I still can't believe there were that many people dumb enough to mutiny against the girl who froze the whole country the last time she got ticked off."

"Yeah, well, they're toast now," said Anna. "Actually, I guess they're more like frozen bread. You get the idea."

"I just wish I knew where Adrian got that magic sword," said Elsa. "And I don't understand why he hated me so much."

"Hey, I'm just as confused as you," shrugged Kristoff. "I've known Adrian for years. I mean, I wasn't, like, close with him, but I didn't peg him as the type who'd ever try to kill anyone. And he definitely never acted all gruff and serious. He hung out with the other ice harvesters, he had a wife, he cracked jokes-"

"Wait," cut in Elsa. "A wife?"

"Yeah, I think they had a house out by the fjords," said Kristoff blankly. "Why? Is that important?"

* * *

A carriage bounced over the rock-studded road towards the fjords.

"You didn't have to come with me," Elsa said from the front seat.

"You could use the company," came Anna's reply from the back. "I mean, telling someone their husband went crazy and killed himself? That's not something _I'd_ wanna do all alone."

Elsa let out a sigh. "Try not to put it that bluntly to her."

Anna's face flushed. "Oh, yeah, of course. Sorry."

"We need to stay on her good side," said Elsa. "This might be our only chance to learn why Adrian had a vendetta against me."

The girls had tried to do some research on Adrian before heading over, but the most they'd unearthed on short notice was some old housing records giving his surname, Dale, and address – somewhere out by the fjords.

After what felt like forever, the carriage finally rolled to a stop and a guard opened the side door.

Maybe it was just because of the last time Anna had ridden in a carriage, but Elsa was getting a strange sense of foreboding. "You can wait outside if you want, Anna."

"And leave you to break the news all by yourself?" This was enough to make Anna hop out of her seat. "No way."

The house of Adrian and his wife was a modest, wooden one with faded paint, and it rested on the edge of a small cliff overlooking an inlet of seawater. A golden-brown horse lurked by the side of the building, regarding the newcomers curiously. All this coupled with the hot summer sun and pleasant breeze should have made the home come off as charming and welcoming, but somehow it didn't. Elsa had to force herself to put one foot in front of the other until she'd reached the welcoming mat.

One of the accompanying guards pounded on the door for her. "Mrs. Dale?" he called out. "This is the palace guard. The queen requires an audience with you."

They waited several minutes. No answer. The foreboding started to grip Elsa again.

But then the door crept open.

The woman standing before them seemed a bit too pretty to be grandmotherly and a bit too gray-haired to be youthful. She seemed frail – her hand trembled over the doorknob.

"H-Hello?" Her voice sounded a little too soft, like it was broken.

"Mrs. Dale, my sister and I came to speak with you about your husband." Elsa put on her "queenly" voice, as if this whole ordeal was only mildly interesting to her.

"_Did he try and hurt you__?_"

Elsa didn't know what she'd expected, but it certainly hadn't been for Mrs. Dale to immediately break down.

"Thank God you're alright! I think he- I think he lost his mind! I heard him plotting some kind of attack, and- and his men threatened me! I've been too scared to leave the house. I thought he would…" She looked around. "Where is he? Is he in jail?"

Elsa glanced back at Anna, but all she could offer was a sad stare.

There were times Elsa didn't feel like the queen. She could sit on a throne with servants waiting on her hand and foot all she liked, but her brain would still insist that Elsa was just a little girl, and gray-haired old ladies were grown-ups, and it wasn't supposed to be the little girl's job to tell the grown up something like, "I'm sorry. Your husband… took his life yesterday evening."

Elsa wished Anna had stayed in the carriage. Anna had seen too much mourning in her life.

The royal sisters and guards were led inside silently. The interior of the house, much like the exterior, should have been inviting – the sisters seated themselves on a cozy couch near a window that streamed in sunlight – but once again there was some imperceptible quality that made Elsa uneasy.

After a while, Mrs. Dale was able to ask a coherent question: "How did he die?"

Elsa had entered the house vowing to spare this poor woman the truth – at least give her some comfort. But then she thought about being forced to her hands and knees on the frozen lake. Elsa told her everything. As she spoke, the room grew ice cold, and not from Elsa's powers, either. Even Anna managed to stay silent for the entire story. After an eternity, Elsa reached the end.

"I'm sorry, Your Majesty." Mrs. Dale shook her head. "Adrian had never touched magic before in his life. I don't know how he got his hands on an enchanted sword."

"Alright, but do you know what possessed him to do what he did?" Elsa asked. "My sister and I came here because we were hoping for some answers."

Mrs. Dale took a while to reply. "Follow me outside."

Elsa ordered her guards to stay put, then exited the house alongside her sister. Elsa was glad for the chance to leave – She wasn't sure why that living room had made her so anxious. Maybe it was the fact that Mrs. Dale was wearing a black dress. Or maybe it was the ragdoll lying abandoned on the floor in the corner of the room. Or the tiny rocking horse beside it.

The widow led the girls to a small hill several yards from the house. They marched in silence until they reached the top, where a large oak tree had taken root.

"She used to love sitting up here," Mrs. Dale said softly.

Anna looked lost, making Elsa the first to catch on. "I'm sorry," she said quietly. "Parents and children shouldn't have to be separated."

"I know we started late, but… Adrian had wanted one so badly…" Mrs. Dale's voice was no longer shaking. She sounded at peace. "Her name was Emma. Adrian loved her… more than anything. But… she was sick. Doctors never could tell us why. That happens sometimes. It's so… so senseless. One day she'd be full of life and the next… no energy. No enthusiasm. It happens."

She hung her head. "Emma loved being outside, but, well… as time went by, she could do it less and less… bedridden… She was hardly ever allowed to go far from home. Maybe… Maybe that's why she took such a liking to you two… Nobody ever saw the princesses leave their home. She must have seen kindred spirits, I don't know…"

Elsa's breath was caught in her throat, and judging from Anna's face, so was hers.

"One day, years ago, back when she was still strong enough to come into the city with me, we caught a glimpse of Princess Anna. I think that was one of the few times you ever left the castle."

Anna blinked in surprise, then blushed. From what Elsa had heard, it had been less of "leaving the castle" and more of one of a handful of escape attempts during Anna's rebellious teenager phase. It had ended with the palace guards dragging her back home kicking and screaming, which had drawn quite a crowd.

"That's when she started liking you two," said Mrs. Dale. "I guess Princess Anna reminded her of herself… Your hair even looked alike."

Anna ran a hand over her pigtails. Her hairstyle hadn't really changed much over the years.

"When the new queen's coronation was announced, Emma naturally wanted to see it. She wanted to see it so badly, and… _I wish we had let her_." Her voice shook. "But the night before, she had one of her worst spells, and she was just too weak to travel that far. She spent all day sitting up on this hill. I think… she was listening… seeing if she could hear any of the music in the distance. Adrian and I… We both stayed home to keep an eye on her, but… it was a beautiful summer day. We didn't see the harm in letting her sit outside under a tree. How could we?"

If Elsa had to write a list of all the moments in her life where it felt like the world was collapsing on top of her shoulders, it would include: Watching her little sister fall limply to the ballroom floor. Anders knocking on the door to tell her Mama and Papa would not be returning from their voyage. Listening to her sister cheerfully inform her of her plans to marry a charming man she met a couple hours ago. The panicked stare of the masses as they watched her freeze a fountain. Her little sister, perched on the frozen harbor, nothing left of her but her shape in ice. The halls of the castle alight with flames while Elsa cowered in her room, failing to control her lungs. Adrian's sword falling towards Anna's neck.

And the widow's next five words:

"And then the snow came."

She didn't sound sad. Just hollow.

"It was falling so fast, and right away Adrian knew something was wrong, and he ran out towards the hill immediately, but… by the time he got there… up to his knees… She was eight."

Anna looked like she'd been told the sky was green. "But there were no reported casualties!"

Mrs. Dale shook her head. "We never told anyone. When Adrian found out what caused the winter, he… changed. He couldn't get over it. I tried to tell him… tell him it wasn't your fault, Your Majesty. You were just scared and you-"

But Elsa interrupted her. She didn't say anything, just made a noise. Somewhere between a sob and a scream. Elsa was pale. No, pale was how she normally looked. Elsa looked like she'd been in the grave a day.

"Elsa, no- It's- You're-" Anna's brain was apparently firing blanks.

Elsa couldn't look at her sister. Definitely couldn't look at the old woman standing under the tree.

The next thing she knew, Elsa turned and _ran_. She ran far and she ran fast, hardly even conscious of where she was going. Her legs were moving all on their own.

_Not breathing right._

* * *

Anna's brain had reloaded, and now it was firing just fine. And the bullet was Anna watching helplessly across the frozen harbor as Hans lifted his sword. Elsa on her knees, offering no resistance… because she thought she had killed someone.

Anna's face was pure horror. She turned to the old woman leaning against the tree. "_S__orry I gotta go bye!_" Mrs. Dale only watched sadly as Anna bolted down the hillside.

"Elsa! Elsa, wait!" Anna sprinted until her lungs were burning, but by the time she caught up with her sister, Elsa was already at the edge of the fjord. She dashed over the water without even hesitating, a path of ice sprouting at her heels as she ran.

Okay, Anna was getting some really bad flashbacks to coronation night. She was about to run out onto the ice after Elsa, but she hesitated.

_Alright, slow down, feisty-pants, __it's no__ time to be reckless_, said Anna's inner-Kristoff. It was scorching out, which was good because it meant another eternal winter wasn't eminent but bad because that ice-path probably wouldn't hold for much longer, and swimming lessons were hard to come by when you'd spent a decade locked up in a castle.

Anna was left with no choice but to watch her sister grow smaller on the horizon. She took some ragged breaths, forcing herself to think. It didn't look like Elsa was headed for the North Mountain this time. Judging from the direction she was running, she was either planning on building an ice palace in the middle of the ocean or making a bee-line for the Arendelle castle island.

Anna chose to be optimistic.

An eternity later, she and the royal guards were back in the carriage and rolling their way over the dirt road. It was agonizing. Every passing minute was another minute Elsa didn't have her sister when she needed her most. Another minute closer to Anna being too late to-

_Nope. Stop it_, Anna ordered herself. _That's not happening. Uh uh._

It was at least another five eternities before the carriage finally came to a stop. Anna leaped out and sprinted through the gates, arriving in the entrance hall to find Anders standing by the door.

Before so much as gasping for air, the first thing out of Anna's mouth was, "Have you seen Elsa?"

"Yes, she ran inside a short while ago," said Anders. "It was quite theatric, actually. Is anything the matter?"

"Where is she now?"

"Her bedroom. Why-?" Suddenly, Anders was talking to himself.

Anna skipped up the stairs two-at-a-time. She nearly tripped and broke her neck, but it was worth the precious seconds it saved her. Now all that was left was a mad dash down the bedchambers hallway.

_Please don't let the door be locked oh please oh please oh please._

Anna reached the doorway, and the sight waiting for her almost made her heart stop. It was… the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

The door was completely gone. The only thing there was empty air and a cracked frame. And that meant Anna had a perfect view of the bedroom's interior. A perfect view of the panting, sweat-covered girl sitting up at the edge of her bed, back turned.

Anna laughed. She couldn't help it – She was so relieved. "Wow, those rebels actually improved something. Elsa, we should totally keep the door like this – y'know, nonexistent. I love it!"

Silence.

Anna found herself shivering. The bedroom was packed to the brim with snow. A good several inches of it was piled on the floor, but the rest was hanging in the air, completely still.

Finally, a faint reply: "Don't pretend to be happy for my sake."

"Who's pretending?" said Anna. "I'm really, seriously glad you're…" Her voice trailed off. "…here," she finished lamely. "Elsa, you scared me." Her voice was shaking again, but not from laughter.

Anna brought her hands to her eyes. She stayed like that in the doorway for a minute. Then she felt arms wrap around her.

"I'm not going anywhere," whispered Elsa. "_Never_."

"Yeah," said Anna. "Yeah, I knew that. I just…" The sentence proved harder to finish than she'd expected.

"Sorry I ran away again," said Elsa softly. "I didn't think about how you'd react."

"Elsa, no, it's fine-" Anna quickly returned the hug. "You were… caught off guard, that's all. Do you want to go back and talk with Mrs. Dale some more, or-?"

She could feel Elsa tense in her arms.

"Not if you don't want to!" she hurriedly added.

"Anna, what are we going to do?" Now Anna could feel her tremble.

Anna pondered the question. Only one answer sprung to mind. She ended the hug and walked towards the layer of snow covering the carpet. "We're going to build a snowman."

When Elsa stayed by the doorway, Anna looked back, seeing her face for the first time since entering the bedroom. Elsa's eyes were red and swollen.

"C'mon, we can start right now." Anna gave a small smile. "There's plenty of snow."

Elsa stared. When she remained motionless, Anna took the initiative, dropping to her knees and setting to work piling snow together.

"Come on," she said, "You _know_ how to make a snowman, Elsa. The old-fashioned way, I mean. No powers – that's cheating."

Elsa nodded and wordlessly joined her on the carpet. They hadn't built a snowman in years, but it came back immediately.

There were no sticks, no coal, no carrots. They were left with three shapeless lumps piled atop one another.

Anna gave a strained smile. "Wow. I think it's the best one we've ever built."

Elsa failed to meet her eyes.

"It's a little plain, though…" Anna frowned, thoughtful, and then took Elsa's hand. "Spread out your fingers." Elsa obeyed, allowing Anna to take her palm and press it against the snowman's middle section. Then Anna did likewise with her own hand.

The snowman was left with two crisscrossing handprints over its chest, right in the area where, were it an actual person, you would feel its heartbeat.

Anna surveyed their work. "Now it's perfect."

Still, Elsa stayed quiet.

Somehow, with the snowman there, Anna suddenly knew exactly what to do. She took Elsa's hand again. Elsa allowed Anna to run her own fingers through the gaps in Elsa's, interlocking them.

"Know why I wanted to build a snowman?"

Elsa's voice sounded like it barely worked. "Because I locked you out."

"No." Anna closed her fingers around the trapped hand. "When you ran away just now, I was so scared, I didn't know what you were going to do, and, well, between today and yesterday, I guess we both almost lost each other. And all I could think of was how we needed to build a snowman again because… if we built the snowman, then… then you would know… that I don't care what happens, or what you've done, or what you _think_ you've done. I love you _no matter what_." She sniffled. "Does… Does that make any sense?"

"Yes, Anna," Elsa said softly. "It does."

They sat there for a while, facing their snowman, hands locked. The snowflakes in the air began gently drifting to the floor.

"We should give it a name," said Anna. "You need to remember this snowman, Elsa. If you're scared or upset or lonely, you need to think of it, okay? You can't forget _ever_. It needs a name."

Pause. The last few snowflakes reached the floor.

"Emma," said Elsa.

Another pause. Anna nodded. "Okay. It's a snowwoman, then." Another. "You're not, uh, planning on bringing her to life, are you?"

Elsa shook her head.

"Good, good. That might be a little weird because, y'know…" One last pause. "Elsa, I hope you know what you did was an accident, and what Adrian did was on purpose."

The dam burst.

"_Oh God Anna I killed a little girl._"

There was crying and hugging and that was the extent of the conversation for a while.

Anna waited patiently for silence before saying, "Elsa, you didn't kill _anyone_. You're completely innocent. I mean, you told Adrian I was innocent and you weren't, but that wasn't true. You had it backwards. You've had bad things happen to you, and you handled them the best you could. But not me." She hung her head. "If you need someone to blame for the eternal winter, blame me."

Elsa's face stiffened. "Anna, no-"

"Yes, it was totally my fault!" said Anna, her brow creasing. "You were perfect at your coronation. You had your ice under control, and you even reached out to me, remember? I was the one who screwed up. I let myself get so upset at being alone that I threw myself at the first guy who laid eyes on me, and then when you tried to warn me he was bad news, I shut you out and pushed you and- and- heck, I even yanked off your glove!" She closed her eyes and took a breath. "So I don't want you blaming yourself anymore."

"_Anna, no._" Anna winced at the harshness in Elsa's voice. "You can't live your life thinking that way. I won't _let_ you. Don't you see that mindset is only going to hurt you?"

Anna folded her arms. "Don't _you_ see that's exactly how _I_ feel about _you_?"

Elsa was disarmed. "Okay, Anna…" She shut her eyes. "You were right before. It was an accident. Nobody's fault."

Silence returned to the bedroom.

"What are you talking about?" Anna gave a bittersweet laugh. "It was clearly all Hans's fault."

Elsa joined in. "Alright, I can live with _that_."

Eventually, Elsa unfroze the snow crowding up her bedroom. But the snowwoman stayed untouched.

* * *

Fritz had hardly slept a wink during his stint as bodyguard, unless you counted the mob punching him unconscious. He'd gotten used to spending the night at the queen's bedside, half-awake and listening for any signs of nightmares. Fritz had been more than happy for the extra chance to linger in the queen's presence, of course, but he had to admit making due without sleep had taken its toll. His social skills were lacking enough without him having to use them while in a sleep-deprived haze. And yet here he was now, lying in a comfortable bed in the middle of the night, wide awake.

_Last chance to sleep,_ he reminded himself. The doctors had said he was good to resume work tomorrow. The bandages were coming off and everything. But Fritz couldn't bring himself to be happy about this. The fact that his head was all better meant the doctors were no longer letting Fritz have any morphine. He wasn't sure why, but Fritz _really_ wanted more morphine.

But then the infirmary door crept open, and an acceptable substitute entered the room.

"Hello, Fritz," Queen Elsa said quietly. "I hope I haven't disturbed you. I know it's late."

Fritz took a while to respond. He was mentally weighing his options based on whether this was real or yet another dream. You see, in one scenario, he was ready to confess his love for her, but in the other he wasn't because he would face actual consequences for his actions.

"What? No, no, you're fine. You're great, even. Better than great." Fritz was dimly aware he was digging himself deeper, but he kept running his mouth anyways. "You're amazing. Perfect… What were we talking about again?"

"I've been… Well, I…" The queen took a deep breath. She seemed to be carefully choosing her words.

Fritz's expectations immediately shot so high that nothing short of Elsa professing her total devotion to him could ever hope to meet them.

"Before, you said it felt like the world was constantly barging in and making bad things happen to you." The queen's eyes met the floor. "How… How did you deal with that?"

Fritz's brain went into full-on panic mode. _Oh my God. She views you with something __other than__ casual disdain. She really IS your soul mate!_

Fritz slowly opened his mouth. No sound came out.

_Say something romantic say something romantic say something romantic._

"Well… it's hard to make it through the day when bad things happen all the time," said Fritz, "But… I guess it got a lot easier when I realized there's someone special in my life… Someone I care about so much, I'd brave any hardships to make her happy…"

_Oh goodness, I think you actually nailed it._

"My momma!"

_I hate you._

"Uh, why, are you alright?" He anxiously changed the subject.

Elsa hesitated before answering. "No. I'm not. Fritz, can I ask you to keep watch over my bedside again? I'm sorry, I know you're still recovering, but I don't know who else to go to. Anna fell asleep, and I don't want to bother her…"

"Yeah! Of course!" Fritz was instantly on his feet beside the celestial body he was forever doomed to orbit. "It's no problem at all. But, um, why do you need me? Do you think you might have nightmares again?"

"Something like that."

Right before turning for the door, Elsa finally met Fritz's eyes. Hers seemed a lot redder than he remembered them.

**End of Part One**


	16. Not Wearing Gloves

The week following the rebellion had been more than enough time for Fritz to get over that silly crush he'd supposedly had on the queen. He couldn't believe he'd really deceived himself like that! No, any feelings he may or may not have ever had for Queen Elsa were dead and buried by now. Never to resurface.

Elsa hardly even crossed his mind anymore, except for practical stuff like guarding her efficiently. Even now, as he stood outside the door to her bathing chambers, the fact that Elsa was just on the other side of a thin slab of wood and her clothes were not didn't even occur to Fritz. It certainly didn't drive the swarm of butterflies in his tummy into a frenzy. And he was only sweating because of the steam rising out from under the doorway.

See, Elsa had started giving warm baths a try, but she was still adjusting, which meant every so often the water would splash her the wrong way and she would let out the most adorable little yelp _which elicited no reaction from __F__ritz whatsoever_.

Fritz wasn't even peeping through the keyhole. No, that would be a disgusting invasion of privacy, and Fritz was too professional for that kind of tomfoolery. Really, the whole idea he'd been harboring of ever getting anywhere with Elsa was childish and unrealistic. After all, she was way out of his league, and if it was never happening in a million years, there was no sense torturing himself about it.

Besides, the keyhole was too small. You couldn't make out any detail.

Fritz was broken out of his thoughts by the door swinging open and Elsa emerging fully clothed alongside a cloud of steam.

"How do I look?" she asked.

"_Fantastic_\- I mean, uh, yeah, pretty good." Fritz cleared his throat. "Very, err, regal."

He had complimented her on impulse, but the truth was Fritz hated Elsa's new getup. Ever since that night she'd come to him in the castle infirmary, Elsa had traded in that stunning sky blue dress for a much more conservative outfit – hair up in a knot and a dark violet gown that covered up everything below the neck. It looked like something a queen in her thirties ought to wear.

The only part of Elsa left visible were her bare hands. The hands weren't unpleasant to the eye, of course – very well manicured, if you were into that sort of thing... Not that it mattered to Fritz one way or the other.

His gaze probably lingered longer than it should've, but Elsa failed to notice. She wordlessly glided past Fritz down the hallway. After bath time, Elsa was set to head to the dining hall for a breakfast of strawberries, eggs, and coffee, and then attend a council meeting at nine on the dot. Fritz had memorized every minute detail of Elsa's schedule. So he could guard her efficiently. Yeah.

Fritz trailed after his queen, congratulating himself on not seizing the opportunity to stare at her rear. He'd come a long way. Yes, even Fritz's most elaborate fantasies had been discarded entirely. He no longer daydreamed about so much as kissing Elsa.

Kissing Elsa. What would that feel like? Probably soft and cold... like ice cream.

_Quit, d__ang it! _Fritz ordered himself. _Stay strong or you'll drive yourself mad! __MAD!_

The strained groaning noise he made under his breath was enough to get Elsa to halt her march and turn to stare at him, which shut Fritz up immediately. Elsa chose not to comment aloud and instead resumed walking.

This wasn't the first time Fritz's vow of chastity had earned him funny looks, but Fritz was pretty sure Elsa just thought he was constipated, so no big deal.

* * *

There was total silence in the council chamber, but this time it was less "terrified" and more "bored." At nine o'clock exactly, the large double doors finally swung open and Queen Elsa entered the room, followed by a scrawny boy in an ill-fitting guard uniform who looked kind of constipated.

The entrance evoked no response from the council. No flinching or snapping to attention, just continued bored stares. Elsa didn't exactly look enthusiastic herself – Her shoulders weren't even straight.

For a moment, the silence's hold on the room was unbroken. Then one of the councilmen rose to his feet. "Your Majesty, let me get you a seat." Elsa placed herself in a plain wooden chair.

"Thank you," she said faintly.

More silence.

"So," said the Head of Agriculture, "as you know, we have spent the last several of these emergency meetings discussing the increasing dilemma of the drought. In essence, this dry spell shows no sign of ending anytime soon, and your plan to raise taxes has only worked as a temporary solution. And if I'm not mistaken, the taxation was one of the major rallying points of last week's rebellion incident. Even worse, the latest projections indicate that by this time next month, there won't be enough food to go around. Citizens could be driven to even more extreme action. Of course, the real crux of the issue is that it's simply too hot for anything to grow. And it's not as if there's some way to _magically_ make this problem go away..." He gave Elsa a pointed look.

She bowed her head. "No. There's not."

"Then Your Majesty, I'm afraid we're facing a famine."

The silence over the room switched back from "bored" to "terrified."

Elsa's hands reached her forehead. "Fine, fine... Weaseltown."

The Head of Agriculture raised a gray eyebrow. "Weaseltown?"

"Weaseltown," Elsa repeated.

* * *

"Weaseltown?" The diplomat gaped at Elsa, who was standing in the doorway of his quarters. "But Your Majesty, I thought you'd said-"

"I know what I said," cut in Elsa. "This is urgent. You have to board the ship as soon as possible. We need to open trade _now_. Bring back anyone."

"Anyone?"

"Yes, whoever will come on short notice." Elsa brought her hand to her forehead for about the umpteenth time since the council meeting. "Now get packing."

With that, Elsa left the staff chambers and trudged back towards her own living area. Nightmare images were flashing before her eyes ("Great news, Your Majesty! Weaseltown refused our terms, but I found another nation much more willing to compromise! In fact, they were so enthusiastic to open trade that they brought _twelve_ representatives! Say hi to Prince Hans's identical tredecaplet brothers!").

Anna was going to go ballistic when she found out – Just the word "Weaseltown" was enough to make her seethe. Elsa needed to reach her bedroom, lie on the mattress, wait for her headache to go away, and then figure out a way to break this to Anna gently.

"Elsa! Tell me you're done with boring queen stuff for today!"

...Or Anna could ambush her with a hug halfway to the bedchambers.

"Yes, Anna," Elsa said hesitantly. "It, err, wasn't as boring as you think..."

"I bet," smirked Anna. "But I'm sure we can find something less boring to do if we put our minds to it. Kristoff's back to work now that his leg's all better, and Olaf's wandered off somewhere with his kid friends, so it's just you and me. Ooh! You wanna head into town? I know it's blazing out, but Kristoff was telling me about this awesome cheese vineyard where-"

"Anna," cut in Elsa. "We've had this conversation before."

"_Elsa._" Anna made a show of rolling her eyes. "Come on, I'm not gonna get grabbed by a wight the instant I put my foot out the door."

"You've seen the reports. People are going missing in the village."

"Yeah, but we're the queen and princess. It's not like nobody will notice if someone tries to nab us."

"This isn't up for discussion." Elsa folded her arms. "I already made the mistake of letting you out of my sight when the rebels attacked. It's not happening again."

"Well, that's just great!" snapped Anna. "Right when I was getting used to _not_ being trapped in this castle all the time. Heck, now there's even less to do with all the burned parts roped off!" She gestured towards another hallway behind Elsa's bodyguard, where a team of workers was busy ripping out blackened wood and hammering in new pieces.

"Anna, I'm sorry, but it's only for the time being," sighed Elsa. "I'll feel more comfortable letting you out of my sight when the authorities have caught this 'wight.'"

Anna let out a sigh of her own, then met Elsa's eyes. "Alright, alright. We can do something fun inside, then."

Silence.

"We could... read a book," offered Elsa. Anna made a face. "Okay, forget it."

"Can we at least go out and buy some new paintings soon?" asked Anna. "It's been like a week and the gallery's still empty."

Elsa shook her head. "I'm sorry, but portraits are expensive, and with the cost of repairing the castle topped with food prices rising, it's not going to work out." She took a breath. "Speaking of which... Well, you're not going to like this, Anna, but-"

"Yes, I know, I _said_ I'd cut back on the chocolate fondue!" Anna threw her hands in the air. "Look, Elsa, I know we can find _something_ fun to do. We could at least screw around with your powers again. I mean, we still don't know what the deal was with you making water that one time. Heck, it shouldn't even be _possible_ for you to be bored. You- You can make us a snow fort whenever you want and never run out of ammo!

Anna had gotten quite enthusiastic halfway through her suggestions, but Elsa jerked her head away like she'd been slapped.

"...Elsa?"

"We've had _this_ conversation before, too," Elsa said quietly.

You could see the red pouring into Anna's cheeks (which Fritz saw as a warning sign he ought to take a few steps back and pretend he wasn't eavesdropping).

"Elsa, I am getting _really sick_ of this attitude. It's been a week. You have to use your powers eventually!"

Elsa's eyes were shut tight. "No, Anna, I... I can control it now. So I _don't_ have to."

"That doesn't sound like 'control' to me," huffed Anna. "Sounds more like 'conceal, don't feel.'"

Elsa turned her head away. "It's not like that, Anna. I'm not wearing my gloves." She glanced down at her hands, as if double-checking. "And I'm not hiding how I feel. Right now, I feel exhausted. I've been trapped in emergency council meetings all week."

Anna placed her hands on Elsa's shoulders. "Elsa, I'm worried about you. Is that really all this is? You're just tired?"

Elsa took another breath. "No. I'm... unhappy." Somehow, saying that aloud made it seem more real. Concern immediately crossed Anna's face. "But I think that's understandable given all that's... happened. And I don't... I don't know how to make myself feel happy again."

"Elsa, _using your powers_ makes you happy."

Another, even deeper, breath. "I can't. It... wouldn't be right."

It was at this that the red rushed back into Anna's face. "_Why are you being like this?_" she flat-out yelled. "To punish yourself? Do you really think that changes anything? Do you think it's what _she_ would want?"

Anna waited, but there was no reply.

"Elsa, listen to me," she finally said. "Do you remember those promises you made?" As she spoke, Anna held up fingers to punctuate her point. "One: The gates are staying open forever. Two: We are never in any way, shape, or form ever having anything to do with Weaseltown or the Southern Isles ever again. And three: We are _never_ going back to the way we were. _Ever_."

Elsa finally, slowly, opened her eyes. "We're not going back to that, Anna."

"Then promise _again. _I want you to vow you won't break your swears. Or, uh, swear you won't break your vows. You know what I mean."

There was a second of hesitation. Then Elsa said, "I promise." The sisters sealed the deal with yet another hug.

"Great, now let's get you happy again," said Anna. "Weren't we trying to think up something fun to do before we got sidetracked?"

"Yeah," nodded Elsa. "Any ideas?"

There was an abrupt pause in the conversation.

* * *

Half an hour later, in the castle library:

"'_No, I'll look first,' she said, 'and see whether it's marked "poison" or not'; for she had read several nice little histories about children who had got burnt, and eaten up by wild beasts and other unpleasant things, all because they WOULD not remember the simple rules their friends had taught them: such as, that a red-hot poker will burn you if you hold it too long; and that if you cut your finger VERY deeply with a knife, it usually bleeds; and she had never forgotten that, if you drink much from a bottle marked 'poison,' it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later_."

Anna looked up from the text.

"Elsa, that was the funny part."

"What? Oh." Elsa proceeded to give the saddest excuse for a laugh Anna had ever heard.

"Look, if you don't want to read-"

"I don't _get_ this book!" groaned Elsa. "It doesn't seem like it's even a story. It's just random stuff happening!"

"_But that's why it's funny!_"

"Well, I guess I'm just not in the mood. I'm tired, Anna. I need to get to bed." Elsa raised her head off Anna's lap and made for the door.

"Are you sure?" frowned Anna, reluctantly shutting the book. "It's pretty early. I mean, if you don't like this author, we could try something by S. Morgenstern-"

"I'm sure," said Elsa. "Good night."

"Night."

Elsa exited through the library door, followed by her bodyguard.

Reading had been a terrible idea, and Elsa knew it. Being confined to the same building for over a decade meant Anna had long ago exhausted the library's stock, or at least all the "good ones," as she put it. And books had lost their appeal to Elsa after their parents changed "reading for fun" into "reading to see if you can get through the sad or scary parts without making ice."

Elsa was brought out of her thoughts by her guard suddenly speaking.

"Um, Your Majesty, I don't mean to intrude or anything," stammered Fritz, "but why didn't you tell your sister about... y'know... about Weaseltown? I mean, if you told her it's preferable to mass starvation, I'm sure she'd understand."

Elsa let out a drawn-out sigh. "During the eternal winter, some men from Weaseltown tried to kill me. We don't have any proof, but Anna's convinced the Duke put them up to it, and I promised her we wouldn't do business with them again. I'm going to tell her. I just... need to find the right way to do it."

"Oh, um, okay. Forget I said anything..."

Of course, Elsa had left out the real reason she'd held off on telling Anna. Namely, that it would raise the question, "Why can't you just use your powers to end the drought?"

The route to the bedroom was longer than usual seeing as Elsa had to navigate around all the burned portions. She was getting really tired of that, but the castle had been old and repairing it was proving to be a long, expensive endeavor.

It was as she was looking for a route around a charred staircase that Elsa crossed paths with her butler.

"Oh, Anders, there you are," said Elsa. "How's the hiring of new staff coming along?"

"Circuitously," Anders said dryly. "All our work has been set back to square one thanks to our friend the Admiral, and the hiring process has been no more expedient the second time around."

"We need more guards," said Elsa. "People have been disappearing in town."

"Well, we've already quadrupled the size of the guard, but why quit when we're ahead?"

"And why doesn't Anna have a bodyguard yet?"

"Because I don't envy the man tasked with keeping pace with her twenty-four seven, and I wanted to delay the suffering for as long as possible."

Elsa gave him a stern look.

"It's on the to-do list! I _said_ hiring staff was circuitous."

"Well, if that's all you have to say, I really need to get to bed..." Elsa started to resume her walk.

"Queen Elsa, wait!" Anders suddenly said. Elsa paused and turned back around. "About a week ago, I seem to recall making a sarcastic remark regarding paranoia."

Elsa's eyebrows creased. "I'm _not_ being paranoid."

"Yes, yes, I make no claim to understand the inner workings of the teenage mind. I don't know why you've been acting so differently since the rebellion, but have you considered what the citizens of Arendelle might think?"

"Think about what?" demanded Elsa.

"About how a group of people just tried to overthrow the queen because of her magic, and now the queen is refusing to use said magic."

Elsa let out another exasperated sigh. "It's... more complicated than that."

"Well, I wouldn't know." Anders turned to walk away. "Since you aren't planning on telling me what happened." He vanished down the hallway, but not before giving Fritz a glare of disapproval.

For a moment, Elsa stood in the hallway, staring off into space. Then she made for her bedroom. That headache hadn't diminished in the slightest. Elsa really needed to throw herself under the covers and nod off, but she ended up lingering by the windowsill. This was a new bedroom, but it stirred up old memories. A windowsill had been the first thing Elsa had accidentally frozen after Anna's head.

But back in the present, the contact of bare skin to the surface did nothing. For years, Elsa would've given anything for that, but now she almost wished the ice would jump out of her fingertips again without her having to tell it to. Even when it'd frightened her, Elsa had to admit making the ice had always given her a pleasant little rush...

But then Elsa's gaze moved to the snowwoman in the middle of the room. A personal flurry cloud hovered over its head, dusting it with snowflakes.

"Fritz," Elsa spoke up, "could you stay by my beside again?"

Fritz shifted uncomfortably. "Are you sure, Your Majesty? You seemed like you were sleeping a lot better these last two nights."

"I'm sure, Fritz."

Without another word, Elsa went to change into a nightgown – the regular cloth kind – and Fritz seated himself in the chair they'd started leaving at her bedside.

Elsa emerged with her hair down, wearing scarlet-colored silk. "Are you alright?" She blinked at Fritz. "You seem a bit... sweaty."

"M-Must be the heatwave," said Fritz.

* * *

Arendelle was one of those places north enough that it was daylight until three in the morning, so Fritz could make out every detail of the sleeping Elsa's face. Of course, he was only staring at her because he was on the lookout for signs of nightmares. It wasn't like he enjoyed it or anything.

Fritz watched intently as a little breath escaped Elsa's lips. It smelled minty. He wondered if that was because she'd just brushed her teeth or if her powers made it that way naturally.

_Platonic_, Fritz chanted to himself. _You feel_ _SO_ _platonic towards her. Platonic platonic platonic._

He tried to remind himself why he'd sworn off his obsession with Elsa in the first place, hoping to regain that initial burst of motivation. It'd been right after Elsa stopped using her powers. Fritz had no clue why she'd done that exactly, but he was guessing the rebels setting fire to her home might have been a contributing factor. Elsa had seemed okay that first time she visited him in the infirmary, but the second time, she'd been worried about nightmares... and she'd been absolutely right. The nightmares had been _horrible_. She never told Fritz what they were about, exactly, but they were at least bad enough to keep her from sleeping at all the first couple nights. Sheesh, that girl was in need of a therapist, though Fritz wasn't sure how many of those were trained to deal with the "magical powers" angle.

Fritz hated to see Elsa so unhappy. That was why he'd promised himself he'd quit having a crush on her. He'd been so self-centered, all he could think about was dating her when she clearly needed emotional support. And the fact that he violated his oath two seconds after making it didn't mean it wasn't still a nice gesture!

But even when scoring with her wasn't the ulterior motive behind his every action, Fritz was afraid he didn't comfort Elsa much. He was still a socially-impaired screw-up, after all, and he'd ended up mostly keeping quiet and banking on her sister figuring out the right thing to say to make Elsa happy again. The problem was that hadn't happened yet, and Elsa had grown even more withdrawn than usual. Fritz couldn't stand it. _Himself_ having a terrible life was one thing, but Elsa was too smart and pretty and perfect. She didn't deserve this.

"Ohhhh..."

Fritz's spacing out was ended by Elsa rolling over under her covers and making a soft moaning noise. He quickly double-checked her face. Elsa didn't _look_ like she was having a nightmare... In fact, there was actually a hint of a smile on her mouth. Now there was something Fritz hadn't seen in a long time.

Suddenly, Fritz found himself shivering. Wait, hadn't he been sweaty a second ago? Oh no. Fritz was about to wake Elsa up, but then something in the air caught his eye. It was snow, and it was drifting gently to the ground from the ceiling. A little ring of it was forming around the foot of the bed, too.

Elsa shifted in her sleep again. Yep, she was definitely smiling. She must've been having a good dream for once. Seeing Elsa happy, even if it was only while she was sleeping, well... it felt like a weight had been lifted off Fritz's shoulders.

Idiot. It was all so clear to him now. That's why his vow to stop having a crush on her failed so miserably. It wasn't something he could flip on and off like a switch. He... He really loved her. Heck, maybe that'd been the answer all along. Maybe if he just told her how he felt, it'd make her happy and everything would be okay again. Fritz took a deep breath, gathering his resolve. He was really gonna do it this time. He was gonna wake her up and say, "Queen Elsa, I-"

"_Fritz!_" Elsa's eyes opened all by themselves and darted from Fritz to the snow accumulating on the bed. She definitely wasn't smiling anymore. "I told you to wake me if I started using my powers!" Elsa flung herself out of the covers.

"No!" Fritz threw his hands over his face like she might smack him. "You said to wake you if you were having a nightmare! You were having a good dream, uh, weren't you?"

Elsa blinked twice. His seemed to have disarmed her.

"I mean, you were only making snowfall, right? It seemed harmless enough-"

"Just... Just leave." Elsa brought a hand to her eyes. "I need to be alone."

"Yeah, okay, whatever you think is best..." Fritz slinked out of the room like a puppy who'd just been called a bad dog.

* * *

Now Elsa sat alone in bed, taking shallow breaths. Poor kid. She shouldn't have taken out her frustration on him. He hadn't been wrong – She'd been dreaming about building the ice palace.

Elsa looked around her bedroom, from the empty mirror frame to the cracked doorway to the white fluff coating her bedsheets. Elsa had halted the snowfall the instant she'd opened her eyes, but even that brief release was causing some intangible place within her to ache longingly.

Elsa hated this. Hated the smug looks on the councilmen's faces the first day she'd walked in with no ice-dress and no ice-throne. Hated that tinge of disappointment undercutting every conversation with Anna. Hated how... how _muted_ everything felt when she was constantly restraining herself.

Elsa's eyes fell on the snowwoman still in its familiar spot on the floor. She lifted her hands, the ice feeling like it might any minute now erupt like a volcano. "Sorry, Emma..."

Elsa silently cursed herself. A minute ago, she'd really thought she was all cried out on that particular topic.

* * *

Fritz sobbed hysterically as he shoveled massive spoonfuls into his mouth. Somehow, he'd wound up in the kitchens with a big bowl of mint ice cream.


	17. Spontaneous Renovation

"You can do it, too? Wow, that's amazing! Just wait 'til I tell Elsa!"

"_Shh... Our secret..._"

Anna awoke with the feeling there was something important she ought to remember. Unfortunately, she was in that state halfway between the sleeping and waking worlds where stray thoughts wafted in and out of her head at their own leisure. By the time Anna decided to re-pull the covers over herself, her brain had already moved on to other thoughts, such as _zzzzzzzz_...

But then, on the brink of drifting back off, Anna was hit by a violent shiver. _Oh come on_, she thought hazily, drawing the blankets tighter over herself. She hated trying to sleep when it was freezing cold. You'd think it wouldn't be a problem in the middle of summer.

Wait.

"Gah!" Anna hurled herself out of the covers and opened her eyes. Her entire line of sight was filled with sky blue and white. It was everywhere – on the walls, over the ceiling... There was even a blanket of frost over her, well, blanket. For a second, Anna thought she was back in the Ice Palace, but then the disorientation wore off and she started making out features suspiciously similar to the furniture in her bedroom, only... icier. This wasn't jagged, out-of-control ice, either. No, there was actually a careful level of detail to it. Like how the bookshelf had ice over all the wooden parts, but the books themselves were untouched. Or how the dusty old clock on the wall had frost that traced even its tiniest roman numerals exactly.

Anna simultaneously felt extremely relieved and completely panicked. Relieved because, hey, it was a safe bet Elsa was using her powers again. Panicked because _oh god look out the window was that snow? _Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no. Anna had a sinking feeling she was going to have to find Kristoff and climb a mountain and confront her sister and try to bring her back to her senses via duet all over again.

Anna made a valiant leap out of bed and charged for the door. But she didn't make it to the door. She made it to her butt, which skidded across the carpet and smashed into the bookcase, sending all the thickest doorstoppers down on her head. "Ow." Yeah, the floor was ice, too.

After excavating herself, Anna made for the door more carefully and successfully reached the bedchambers hallway. It was painted in the same ice as Anna's bedroom, and there were even added touches like suits of ice-armor lining the walls.

Anna shivered again. Everything was fine, everything was fine. She just had to make it to Elsa's room without slipping, and then Elsa would explain what the deal was with freezing the castle and then thaw the fjords again. Easy as pie.

Anna carefully navigated towards Elsa's doorway, which was still missing its door, though the frame itself had apparently been "repaired" by ice filling in the cracks. The rest of the bedroom was equally icy – Anna was getting the idea the entire castle was like that now. There was an elaborate snowflake design over the bed and carpet and a little circular platform for their snowwoman to rest on. The only thing missing from the bedroom was Elsa herself.

Anna's gaze lingered on the mirror above Elsa's bed-stand. The empty frame had been filled by what appeared to be glass, but if she had to guess, Anna would say it was actually very smooth ice. Her reflection stared back at her, looking just as dazed and confused as the real deal.

"Princess Anna?"

"Hm?" Anna turned around to find a very elderly and very tired-looking man standing behind her. She had to suppress a giggle. For once, Anders wasn't in a crisp suit – He was wearing a nightgown complete with pointed nightcap on his head, and yet he was still trying his darnedest to stand up straight and appear dignified.

Then again, Anna wasn't in a position to throw stones. Her hair currently looked like spaghetti that'd been given to a three-year-old, and her own nightgown was flimsy enough to leave Anna perpetually shivering.

"Anders, what are you doing here?"

Anders looked from Anna to the frost covering everything else in sight. "Well," he said flatly, "I couldn't help but notice the castle is caked in more ice than before I went to bed. Granted I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I assumed Queen Elsa had a hand in this."

"Oh. Right. Well, she's not in her bedroom. I guess you haven't seen her?"

Anders shook his head. "If it's any consolation, the snow doesn't extend past the castle borders, so our dear queen at least had enough sense not to freeze all of Arendelle again."

Anna let out a big sigh of relief. Not that she'd, uh, ever doubted her sister.

"In fact, this whole business strikes me as planned rather than an act of passion." Anders knelt to examine the miniscule chainmail loops on one of suits of the ice-armor. "Maybe when we find her, Elsa actually _won't_ be emotionally unhinged."

"Yeah, I hope so," said Anna. "Come on, we'd better go look for her..."

The pair attempted to traverse the staircase without slipping. Anna slid herself down in a matter of seconds, but Anders was more cautious – Falling and hurting yourself is quite a different experience for a wrinkled old man than a sprightly teenage girl. But Anders eventually managed it by gripping the hand rail with both hands and then inching down a step at a time. Anna rolled her eyes impatiently.

Even sitting still for a minute was long enough to let Anna's thoughts wander to bad places, like the frantic attempts to find Elsa the last time she'd run away...

_No. _It wasn't like that this time. Everything was gonna be fine. Elsa was using her powers, so she was probably feeling better, and there was no way she'd run off again. She was probably just...in the dining hall eating breakfast.

* * *

Elsa was not in the dining hall eating breakfast. Or in the throne room. Or out on the balcony. What was in those places, however, was the same coating of ice as in the bedchambers, as well as plenty of staff members who had no clue where Elsa might be and were just as shocked as Anna and Anders at waking up to discover they were now living in a glorified igloo.

The only place mostly untouched by the castle's new, frosty coating was the kitchens, which was fortunate because it meant there was still warm food available. But other than the cooks serving breakfast out of necessity, the palace staff had pretty much halted all routine in favor of marveling at the castle's spontaneous renovations.

Anders was just as happy as the next guy to see that Queen Elsa was using her powers again and "embracing her individuality" or whatever kids called it these days, but he didn't think it was worth the cost of sending the castle into total anarchy. He should've known this would happen. The ice-towel had been a warning sign! First it was ice-dresses and ice-towels, and the next thing you knew, the whole castle would be ice and Anders would be out of a job because Elsa would replace the staff with snowman doppelgangers!

Well, if a tired and overworked butler had to single-handedly restore order, then so be it. As chief of staff, Anders bravely took it upon himself to get into several shouting matches with people about how he didn't care if they woke up to find the palace transported to the middle of the Arctic Circle, they were doing their job right now or they were _fired__!_

He and Anna even found one of the guards fast asleep at a kitchen table with his face buried in a gigantic bowl of ice cream. Disgusting. The boy was awoken through nothing but the sheer force of the disapproving glare Anders gave him.

The first thing the boy saw upon opening his eyes was the face of an elderly man who could easily pass as God fixing to hurl lightning at a sinner. He let out a girlish shriek and tumbled out of his chair.

"Wait a minute, you're Elsa's bodyguard," realized Anna. "Where is she? Why aren't you guarding her?"

"I don't know! I don't know anything!" the boy yelped as he frantically tried to wipe dried ice cream off his mouth. "Queen Elsa told me to go away and you can't fire me for doing what the queen told me to-"

"Fine, come help us look for her." Anna grabbed his arm. "You follow her around all the time-"

"Only when I'm on duty, I swear!"

"-so you must know where she likes to hang out. Come on, we'll explain as we go..."

Great. So now they had to wait for this scatterbrained buffoon to clean ice cream off himself and change clothes. Anders didn't trust the Gudmund kid. His job required him to be in Elsa's presence twenty-four-seven, even in private, and he was a teenage boy, and Elsa was a teenage girl, and one plus one equals two.

Anders and Anna waited for the boy outside the staff chambers entrance, both of them now in clothes they hadn't slept in. Anders sat stone-still, but Anna paced back and forth restlessly, though it was pretty wobbly pacing thanks to the ice-floor.

"Princess Anna, I can't help but notice Elsa has been acting... peculiar lately, even before today's events," said Anders. "I imagine it has something to do with her fear of that monster coming to kill her, but has anything... _else_ happened?"

Anna's pacing came to an abrupt stop. "Elsa really really _really_ doesn't want me to tell anyone," she admitted.

Anders let out a sigh. "Princess Anna, I know it's not always as apparent, but I care about Elsa's well-being just as much as you. We all do."

Anna failed to meet his eyes. For a second, it looked like she might say something, but then the staff chambers door swung open and the boy emerged looking marginally more presentable.

"Okay, so Elsa likes to go to the library to be alone, and if she's bored she walks around the courtyard, and from twelve to one she visits with citizens by the front gates, except on Fridays when she gets her nails done," he said. "Just, uh, off the top of my head."

When failed to appear in any of these places, the boy produced another dozen locations off the top of his head.

The first eleven proved just as fruitless, but at the twelfth, they actually did find Elsa. Sort of. It wasn't really Elsa herself so much as a gigantic ice statue of her resting a couple yards outside the castle gates. And there was an Anna statue right next to it, which was flattering in a weird way.

Naturally, the palace's transformation had drawn a sizable crowd of citizens, most of them flocking around the statues. The castle's exterior was even more layered in ice than its interior, which made for a spectacular view, even from a distance.

Despite Anders's distaste for the castle's new "cover everything in frozen water" artistic direction, he did reluctantly concede that the gigantic statues were a good idea. They had welcoming facial expressions that made the royal sisters seem authoritative without quite coming off as egotistical dictators. Anders thought back to the conversation he'd had with Elsa the previous day. He was glad to see she'd dealt with the issue in her own unorthodox way. He just wished her way hadn't involved freezing the whole castle, that was all. Sudden, drastic change and finicky old men didn't agree with each other.

When it became clear that Elsa wasn't hiding in the crowd, the trio of Anna, Anders, and Fritz moved on towards the castle garden. The snow was miraculously unmelted despite the humid outdoor air, and it even stayed back a clear distance from the flowers. They didn't find Elsa here, either, but they did find a certain animated snowman.

"Hey, guys!" Olaf greeted, glancing away from the snowball fight he was currently participating in with his kid friends. Dropping his guard earned Olaf a snowball to the face, which made it look like he had some sort of tumor. "You were wrong about the whole 'melting' thing. It's the middle of summer and there's plenty of snow here."

"I'm pretty sure Queen Elsa did that," said Fritz (He was used to the magical talking snowman by now. When you lived in Elsa's constant presence, you learned to roll with these things).

"Ohhhhhhhh..." It took a few seconds, but you could see the understanding cross Olaf's coal-eyes. "That _would_ make sense..."

"Olaf, we're looking for Elsa," Anna told him. "Do you know where she is?"

Olaf pondered this for a moment. Then a bright-eyed smile crossed his doughy face. "Ooh! Ooh! I saw her earlier today!"

All three humans jerked in surprise.

"Where? Where?" asked Anna.

Olaf took another moment to ponder. "I don't remember," he said. "But I saw her!" And with that, he got distracted by the ongoing snowball fight and ran off.

The trio let out simultaneous groans.

"Well, this at least proves she hasn't dropped off the face of the earth," said Anders. "But I suppose at this point we ought to abandon all hope of stumbling across some overly convenient way to locate her."

"I know where the queen is."

The trio spun around to find a small group of muscular, stubble-chinned men marching single-file away from the castle gates. They were carrying hammers, planks of wood, and other construction equipment.

"Oh! Aren't you guys the construction workers who were fixing the burned parts of the castle?" said Anna.

"Well, not anymore," the head worker huffed. "The queen finished the whole job herself with those fancy-shmancy magic powers of hers. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find work refurbishing classic European architecture nowadays?"

"Hold up," said Anna. "Is that why Elsa made the castle all icy? To fix the burned parts?"

"You can ask her yourself. We saw her go up there." The man pointed upwards towards the very tip of Arendelle castle.

Suddenly, Anders realized why they'd been unable to find Elsa until now. The place the worker was pointing to hadn't been there before. It was a whole new tower jutting off the peak of the palace, made purely of ice.

"Oh, I remember now! She's in that ice-tower!" Olaf helpfully called out.

* * *

When she'd first discovered the castle's icy-makeover, Anna had been pretty weirded out, but she was starting to get an idea what Elsa had been thinking. Everybody in that crowd outside had been going on about how amazing and impressive the castle's transformation was, but as far as Anna had heard, nobody had breathed the words "remember," "that," "rebellion," "last," and "week" in that order. In fact, Elsa had _literally_ covered up the damage from the rebels. Anna was pretty sure there was still plenty of burnt wood hiding beneath all the frozen walls and floors and ceilings, but you couldn't see it even if you examined the ice really thoroughly.

Anna, Anders, and Fritz reached the spot the out-of-work workers had directed them to. They hadn't noticed on their first several searches of the castle, but the hall that'd gotten the worst fire damage now contained a hollowed-out wall with an icy staircase that definitely hadn't been there last night.

She wasn't nearly as anal about it as Anders, but Anna had to admit there was something really disorienting about having the place you'd lived your entire life completely change overnight. Now that she thought about it, though, Anna didn't mind. She'd honestly been getting pretty sick of the old version of the castle. The only time she'd ever really been away from it, she'd been too busy running from wolves and scaling mountains and freezing to death to appreciate it.

So the change was welcome, really. But Anna would have appreciated it if the floor hadn't been covered in ice, too. She'd nearly slipped and face-planted, like, thirty-seven- whoops, make that thrity-eight times.

"Are you okay?" Fritz impulsively tried to catch Anna, but he was even less graceful than her and ended up face-planting spectacularly.

"Let's hurry up and get to the tower, okay?" Anna slid herself towards the stairs. "The sooner we find Elsa, the sooner we can get this sorted out."

There was a minimum of further antics until the trio was traversing the ice-staircase, but going upstairs when every step is slick is not as easy as it sounds.

"By 'get this sorted out,' I hope you meant 'beg Elsa to change the castle back,'" grumbled Anders.

"What? No!" said Anna. "First off, living in an ice palace is starting to grow on me-"

"Careful, you almost slipped again. Are you shooting for forty?"

"-and second off, Elsa got pretty defensive the last time I tried to make her leave an ice palace, and I only did it then because she froze Arendelle and ran away from home. She hasn't done that stuff this time."

"Does she make ice castles often, then?" spoke up Fritz.

"No, but I have a feeling it's becoming a habit," Anders said dryly.

Anna gave him a dirty look. "We're almost to the top of the stairs, and if Elsa's been all alone up there all this time, she's probably still a teeny bit upset, so I want everyone to be _nice_, and if you have any complaints to give her, voice them _nicely_."

"Why are you looking at _me__?_" muttered Anders.

With that said, the group emerged at the top of the ice-tower. The large, round room didn't have a stone foundation to build over, meaning unlike the rest of the castle, it looked like it was lifted directly from the North Mountain's palace. There was even a balcony directly across from the stairs that was nearly identical to the original Ice Palace's, only its view was of the sprawling city surrounding Arendelle castle.

But Anna hardly noticed any of that. In her eyes, the only sight in the room was the pale woman curled up against a wall, still in her scarlet nightgown, eyes shut.

"Elsa!" Anna made a bee-line for Elsa and gently shook her shoulders. Anders and Fritz held back by the head of the stairs – It was an unspoken rule among the palace staff to never intrude on "sisterly moments."

"...Anna?" Elsa slowly opened her eyes and rubbed the sleep out. "Oh, sorry, I must've dozed off... I, err, stayed up a little late last night."

"Yeah, guess you were busy, huh?" grinned Anna.

A matching smile spread over Elsa's face. "Do... Do you like it?" She gestured to their surroundings.

Another unspoken rule: When your loved one puts on a big smile and asks if you like something they made, you have to answer in the affirmative, preferably with great enthusiasm.

"Are you kidding? I love it!"

"And you don't think the statues were too much?"

"Of course not. How did you know I've always wanted a giant statue of myself?"

"Good, good, I'm glad you like it." Elsa gave her a hug.

"I like it, too!" Fritz tried to say, but he failed to catch Elsa's attention.

"Pardon me," spoke up Anders, "but rare as it is that I'm the lone dissenting voice, am I the only one who's considered that living in a building made of ice is a spectacularly bad idea from a practical standpoint?"

"What do you mean?" asked Elsa, rising to her feet. "I was careful not to touch places like the kitchens where the ice could interfere with anything."

"With all due respect, Your Majesty, in our search for you, the three of us nearly broke our necks a collective five hundred times."

At Anders's words, Elsa looked downwards. Her eyes widened. "Oh. OH! I'm so sorry! I completely forgot ice is slippery!"

Anders's facial expression was a smart remark all on its own.

"I've, err, gotten to the point where I don't really slip on ice if I don't want to," said Elsa, blushing. "It's part of my powers. Here, I can fix this..."

With a quick stomp of her foot, Elsa sent a shockwave through the entire castle. All the ice on the floor was replaced with a strange, new substance – a snow-carpet. Hey, if she could make ice-dresses, she could make snow-carpets, right?

"Any other problems?" Elsa asked.

"No, Your Majesty..." (Anders was racking his brain for some other really good reason to change the castle back, but he was having trouble coming up with anything more articulate than, "But I don't _want_ to live in an ice palace! Waaaaaah!" so he kept his mouth shut.)

"It _is_ a little cold in here," said Anna.

"I think I can regulate castle's the temperature," said Elsa. "I've been experimenting with my powers, and I'm pretty sure if I focus on it, I can stop it from getting too cold without melting the ice."

"We'll figure it out later," shrugged Anna. "It'll be worth it. I mean, living in an ice palace is gonna be _so awesome._"

Anders rubbed his forehead. "You're keeping the castle this way forever, aren't you?" Both sisters nodded. "Wonderful. Well, if this is the norm from now on, then I'm off to have some choice words with certain staff members. Most of them seem to have decided the frozen castle makes today a _holiday_." He spat the word the way one might spit "orphanage burning" or "puppy murder." Then Anders slinked away down the newly-carpeted staircase and vanished from sight.

Now the sisters were alone. Well, Fritz was with them, but they'd honestly forgotten about him.

"Hey, Elsa," said Anna. "I'm glad you're feeling better, but I've gotta ask... why? I mean, I like what you did to the castle, and I really like that you're using your powers again, but yesterday, you seemed like you..." She bowed her head. "...weren't about to get any better."

Elsa took a breath before replying. "You were right, Anna. Using my powers made me happy again. I'd remembered my time on the North Mountain, how I let my powers loose after holding back for so long. It was the best I'd felt in years. I don't think I ever really wanted to stop using my powers. I just... wanted to feel like _that_ again. And..." Elsa closed her eyes. "...I guess I needed to prove to myself that I could still use my powers without holding back and not... hurt anything. What... _happened_... happened before I learned control."

For a moment, Anna's face grew solemn, but then she put on a smile. "Hey, let's go do something fun. Y'know, to make up for yesterday." Elsa nodded, and then Anna ran off down the stairs. Elsa was about to follow her, but she hesitated.

This created a brief window of time where Elsa and Fritz were alone together. Elsa glanced over at Fritz. Then her eyes noticed where his were going.

"Are... Are you staring at my-"

"_What? No, I'd never_-"

"-nightgown? Thanks for reminding me. I almost forgot." There was a wave of magic over her entire body, and when it faded, Elsa was back in her trademark ice-dress. She followed after Anna too quickly to notice that she'd just given Fritz an aneurism.

Fritz could handle Elsa. He could handle a scarlet nightgown. And he could handle the ice-dress. He just couldn't handle them all at once.

* * *

Several hours later. Nightfall. Voices just outside Elsa's room.

"Go to the staff chambers, Fritz. Get some rest in a proper bed for once. I don't think nightmares are going to be a problem for me anymore."

Elsa entered her newly ice-refurbished bedroom, pleasantly oblivious to the crushing disappointment on Fritz's face as he left down the hallway.

She stood motionless in the center of the room. An onlooker would've thought she was alone.

"I should have told Anna about you," Elsa suddenly said. "I'm keeping too much from her."


	18. Lies, Rumors, and Paranoia

Hot. Much too hot out. The wight dragged himself towards his cave, limping. Shouldn't be this hot. Heat made his bones ache. He neared the cave's mouth, grass withering and browning as his feet brushed it.

Cave. Home. Drafty. Cold in here. Like her.

He scooted some old meatless bones out of the way and threw himself on the pile of hay covering a fragment of the damp cave floor. He let himself collapse, going nearly limp. Then, almost struggling, he lifted his head to gaze at something lying beside him – another, much smaller pile of hay. Empty. A bed with no one to sleep in it.

"We'll make it cold again," he whispered to it. "We'll fix this. You and me."

_Say her name. So you don't forget._

"Elsa," he murmured, his eyelids drooping. "Elsa, Elsa, Elsa, Elsa, Elsa..." He almost let himself nod off, but then he caught something out of the corner of his eye. The portrait. His enemy.

_Worst enemy,_ said a voice in his head. _Kill her._

_No, don't kill her!_ said another.

_Kiss her._

_Hurt her._

_Love her._

_Take her._

And then there were too many voices and the wight clutched his temples, moaning.

_Kill her. Cut her. She's a liar. Don't kill her. Elsa will see it. Make her see it. Kill her. Make Elsa kill her. Liar. Hungry. Hurt her. She's telling the truth. Hungry. Elsa will see it. Kill her. _**Hungry**_. Eat her. Steal her. _**HUNGRY**_. Cut her. Kill _**HUNGRY**_._

One voice overtaking the others. The wight reluctantly pulled himself to his feet. "Hun... gry..."

_No, don't do that,_ said a voice. _Killing is wro_**HUNGRY**_._

_You'll die if you don't eat,_ said another.

**HUNGRY**_._

_Maybe we _should_ die._

**HUNGRY**_._

_Elsa Elsa Elsa Elsa. Stay alive for Elsa._

He stumbled towards the cave entrance. Back into the heat. _Hurts. The sun hurts_**HUNGRY**_._

And then the wight froze. Eyes were staring at him. Not from above him... or below him... or any direction that really existed. It was near. Or far. It didn't matter to It. It saw him. It _knew_.

_It's onto us. It knows about Elsa._

He was running out of time. No more lounging around the cave trying to come up with a new plan. Spending too much time in one place was how you get discovered. It meant people following the trail of bodies and turning up at your doorstep one day with torches, and if the wight didn't like sunlight, he _really_ didn't like torches.

And if It had discovered him, the wight might not even have time to eat. **HUNGRY**. Okay, maybe he could stop for food on the way. One step at a time, the wight ventured into the sun. _Ignore the pain. Go towards Elsa. Go towards Elsa._ If he could make it to Elsa, everything would be alright.

The wight froze again. From the outside of his cave, he had a clear view of Elsa's home off in the distance, between the line of trees. Ice everywhere. The whole castle was covered in it. Now, wasn't that interesting? Elsa wasn't stupid. She must have known by now. Adrian's attack must have left her curious. She must have wondered why this man would do what he'd done. And here Elsa was, using her powers anyways.

A grin spread itself across the wight's face, the skin stretched tightly over his cheeks.

"Good girl."

* * *

_Clang. Clang. Clang._

Today's agenda called for more whacking a frozen lake with pickaxes. The life of an ice harvester is not a varied one. Normally, the big team of hairy, muscle-bound mountain men would've moved onto the next lake by now, but this one had recently been frozen again on top of the first re-freezing.

"He's down there somewhere," one of the harvesters said, gazing at the ice beneath his feet.

"Who?" asked another.

"Adrian. Haven't you heard? Dude went crazy. They say he was the leader of that rebellion last week. Drowned himself right in this lake."

"Yeah, and then the queen froze it again, right on top of him!" added another one, laughing. "And that was after she froze her entire castle. Man, call me crazy, but it seems like all our new queen ever _does_ is freeze stuff."

"No, she's being smart," said another one. "Before, she was 'the girl who accidentally froze Arendelle.' Now she's 'the sorceress who lives in the friggin' ice castle and whooped the last guys who crossed her.'"

There was a pause while the other harvesters pondered this.

"Prince Hans took her on, and she was in an ice palace then," pointed out the first one.

"Yeah, well, Hans is a special kind of stupid. I hear his brothers put him in the stocks and had people pelt rotten fruit all over his pretty boy face."

"I heard they spanked him. Like, literally slapped his-"

"Ugh, are we still talking about this?" a different harvester cut in. "There's a much juicier rumor goin' around. Can't believe nobody's mentioned it yet."

"What, juicier than the queen with the magical winter powers?"

"Oh yeah," the man grinned. "This one comes from a highly reliable source on the palace staff very close to the queen, apparently. It's about her and her sister."

"What, the princess?" an ice-cutter frowned, lowering his pick. "The only rumor I've heard is that she's _easy_. She's dating some no-name idiot, ain't she?"

"Not according to this rumor. They say she's been-"

"Shouldn't you guys be, I dunno, harvesting ice?" came a voice from behind them.

"Oh yeah?" the man scoffed, not turning his head. "And who do you think you are, bossing us around?"

"Oh, just some no-name idiot."

Every worker jolted and immediately retrieved their fallen pickaxes.

"Ah- AH, Kristoff!" gulped the one who'd been talking, turning to find a head of unmanly blond hair glaring right at him. "Didn't see you there, pal! Yeah, uh, we were just catching our breaths, Mr. Official Ice Master! We'll be right back to work-"

"No, no, this sounded good. I'd like to hear this 'juicy rumor' about my girlfriend," said Kristoff dryly.

The man looked to his comrades, but they had no aid to offer him. "Well... I hear the queen and her sister have been doing some... freaky stuff together." His lips curled upwards.

"Like what?" demanded Kristoff.

"They say the two of them are like _weasels in heat__!_ _BWAH HA HA HA H-_"

* * *

"And that's why I hate people," Kristoff concluded as he showed off his freshly-bruised knuckles to Sven. The duo were currently traveling out of the forest and towards the Arendelle capital, where an ice-covered palace towered over the rest of the town. Anna wasn't too happy about him and Sven heading off to work with arrow wounds, but Kristoff had assured her they'd toughed out worse. "Come on, let's hurry over and see the girls before it gets dark. I've had more than enough testosterone for one day."

The boy and his reindeer carried on through the heart of town. They were halted only briefly by a man in a heavy overcoat.

"Psst! Hey kid," he whispered. "Can I interest you in acquiring some unique merchandise?"

"Can I interest you in acquiring a cell in the nearest jailhouse?" Kristoff immediately replied.

"Alright, alright, I can take a hint..." The man slinked away to the filthy back alley from whence he came. Kristoff let out an annoyed snort and continued down the streets.

"Gee, Kristoff, you seem even grumpier than usual," said Sven – though there was a curious lack of passerby going, "Oh my God a talking reindeer!" and surplus of ones going, "Why is that guy talking to himself?" and "Don't make eye contact."

"Thanks for noticing, pal," sighed Kristoff, scratching his friend between the ears. "I really outta be happy, I know... Everyone survived the rebellion unscathed, Elsa's using her powers again, my leg's not hurting me too badly... but I still feel bleh, y'know?"

"I think you're just sad 'cause you're not seeing your giiiiiiiirlfriiiiiiiiend enough," snickered Sven.

"Yeah, yeah, that might be a contributing factor..."

"Y'know, if you asked her, I bet Elsa would let you live at the palace."

"I don't know, Sven..." Kristoff bowed his head. "She's already done a whole lot for us. She made up this 'Official Ice Master' thing and upped our paycheck, which is great because now we can afford rent so we don't have to live on the streets-"

"-and we can buy all the carrots we can eat!"

"-right, and we can buy all the carrots we can eat." Yes, Kristoff interrupted himself to maintain the illusion. "So, I mean, I don't want to keep mooching off the palace..."

As they spoke, Kristoff and his reindeer passed through the gates and into the palace's entrance courtyard. The transition from toasty summertime air to the chilly castle was going to take some getting used to, but Kristoff was pretty on board with the castle's icy makeover. The first time he'd seen it, he'd nearly cried again.

Kristoff gazed up at the pair of huge, icy statues greeting newcomers.

"Y'know what else I think is bugging you?" snickered Sven. "You're worried that ice harvester's rumor was _riiiiiiiight__!_"

"Eww, no, don't be gross!" said Kristoff. "Elsa and Anna only engage in perfectly normal sisterly behavior, like... building giant ice statues of each other."

"Are you _suuuuuuure_, Kristoff? These royal types can get some pretty messed up family trees..."

"Get your mind out of the gutter, Sven." Kristoff shot his friend a glare. "Look, we're almost to Anna, and then she can put this stupid rumor to rest."

Just then, the castle's front doors opened and Anna tumbled out onto the entrance courtyard. Her hair seemed a bit ruffled, and her dress was completely disheveled – one of the straps had even slipped off, revealing a bare shoulder. Elsa followed out shortly afterward, accompanied by that skinny guy who always followed her around.

"Kristoff!" Anna ran to give him a hug.

"Uh, hi, what were you doing just there?" Kristoff's eyes fell on her bare shoulder.

"Oh, Elsa and I were... horsing around," said Anna, absently righting the strap. "We found some really creative uses for her powers."

Kristoff and Sven traded glances.

_Couldn't be_, said Sven (He had the strange ability to speak with Kristoff telepathically).

"Wait, are you hurt?" Anna spotted the blotch of purple on his hand. "What happened?"

"Nothing, nothing," said Kristoff, hurriedly covering it with his hand, "just some jerks spreading a rumor about you and Elsa. I, err, I made sure they wouldn't do it again."

"Rumor?" Elsa regarded Kristoff sternly. "What was it?"

"Oh, uh, nothing," Kristoff muttered. "It's not important."

Elsa folded her arms. "If people are telling lies about the monarchy, I need to know about it."

"Yeah, c'mon, I wanna hear the rumor!" added Anna.

Kristoff started to open his mouth, but his eyes kept darting back and forth between the two sisters. The two cute and sisterly and so very innocent sisters. Kristoff's eyes moved to Sven, who was occupied licking moisture off the snow-carpeted ground.

_You're on your own, buddy, _Sven told him telepathically.

The sisters stared at Kristoff expectantly.

"You know what?" he suddenly said. "I don't even remember anymore. Rumors are stupid anyways. There used to be this really nasty one going around about me and Sven..."

"Whatever, then," shrugged Anna. "Don't get into fights just because people are idiots, okay?"

"Yeah, yeah." Kristoff let out a huge internal sigh of relief. He'd sure dodged a bullet there.

"_You're under arrest, you filthy peddler__!_"

"_You can't do nothin' to me! I know my rights! I know my rights__!_"

Out of nowhere, the courtyard erupted into chaos. A legion of guards stormed in, dragging a kicking and screaming man in a heavy overcoat. Something about him seemed awfully familiar to Kristoff...

"What on earth is going on?" Elsa immediately threw herself into the fray.

Anders was standing before the guards, his nostrils flaring in outrage. "This... This... degenerate monger was trying to pawn off unwholesome merchandise outside the palace gates!"

"Hey! That's top quality goods you're talking about!" snapped the peddler.

"What kind of merchandise?" asked Elsa.

Anders shifted uncomfortably. "It's not fit to discuss with a lady."

"Come on, Anders, we're grown-ups," said Anna, putting herself beside her sister. "Is it drugs? Weapons?"

"Paintings," said Anders darkly. "_Illicit_ paintings."

"You have no appreciation for high-concept art!" The peddler charged at Anders, fists flailing, but the guards grabbed him. In the struggle, the man's overcoat was dislodged and several loose portraits slipped out. Most of them uncurled themselves as they hit the ground.

"Whoa!" Kristoff let out a whistle. "That _is_ illicit!"

Words cannot describe the look on the sisters' faces.

"Is... Is that supposed to be Elsa?" Anna pointed to one of the pictures with a trembling hand. "And is that supposed to be _me_?"

("Could you, uh, move out of the way, please?" Fritz made a futile attempt to look through the wall of guards surrounding the scene, but they were too tall and he was too short. "I need to see so I can be properly morally outraged...")

"_What is wrong with you?"_ Anna spun towards the peddler, her face turning redder than her hair. "_Why would you draw that_?"

"Hey, the artist's merely a slave to whim!" he said, cringing.

"That doesn't even look like me!" Anna jabbed an accusing finger at one of the paintings. "You drew me so much more... more..." She grasped for words. "..._fuller!_"

"Slave to passion, too," shrugged the peddler. "I was inspired by this awesome rumor that's been going around."

Elsa's face had hardened into something that could murder with a single glare. "Whoever started that rumor is sick and twisted, and if I ever find them, I will make them _pay_."

(Fritz blanched and began inching away from the crowd.)

"And as for _your_ punishment..." Elsa fixed her glare on the peddler.

"Jail! Jail until he rots!" screamed Anna.

"As queen, I'm charging you with operating in the city without a merchant's license, public indecency, and slander against the monarchy. That's a hefty fine."

"Debtor's prison! Debtor's prison until he rots!"

"That's not all," added Anders, retrieving a stack of papers from the fallen overcoat. "Apparently, he was also caught trying to run this fifty-page manuscript off at a printing press."

"What's the manuscript about?" asked Elsa.

"Or can we guess?" Kristoff deadpanned.

"Oh, it's about what you would expect from this vile licentious miscreant." Anders held the papers away from his face like they were some kind of anti-Bible.

"For _fifty whole pages_?" scoffed Anna.

"Yes, it's quite descriptive." Anders retrieved a pair of spectacles from his pocket and examined the text. "It appears to start with the two of you covering each other in melted chocolate-"

"Stop, _stop_, that's more than enough!" Elsa impulsively shut her eyes and covered her ears.

"Hey, now," said the peddler, "what am I _supposed_ to do when inspiration strikes?"

"Not another word out of _you__!_" snapped Elsa. "We don't need any more peeks into your depraved, incestuous mind."

"_Incestuous_?" The peddler let out an indignant huff. "Who do you take me for? I'll have you know my writing takes place in an alternate universe where-"

"_Guards__!_ Get him out of my presence!"

And with that, the peddler was punted out the palace gates. The sisters, bodyguard, boyfriend, and reindeer all stood in the now-emptied entrance yard, Elsa and Anna taking a minute to catch their breaths.

"That guy's lucky you didn't freeze his pants off," said Anna. "So, uh, what are we gonna do about _those__?_" She pointed to the numerous paintings and handwritten pages lining the floor.

Elsa knelt down, gathered the papers up in her arms – cautiously, as if they were diseased – and then handed them all to her bodyguard. "Here, go burn these."

The boy took a moment to stare. "Yes," he said. "I will go do that." He bolted through the castle doors with surprising speed.

"Well," said Kristoff, "I don't know about you guys, but I need to go rinse my brain in acid now."

Elsa turned towards the front doors. "You two enjoy yourselves. I have some work to get done."

Anna's face fell. "Do you _have_ to?"

"Sorry, my advisors called another emergency meeting today, and I already wasted too much time on that peddler's garbage."

She started to walk away, but then Kristoff called out, "Elsa, wait!" She paused and turned back around. "Almost forgot. When I was with the trolls before all that craziness with the rebellion happened, they wanted to know when you'd come visit them. They haven't seen you since you were a kid."

Elsa seemed to tense at these words. "I'll see them when the drought's over. Now goodbye." Then she, like her bodyguard, vanished behind the palace doors.

* * *

The council chamber was no longer drab and gray. The elaborate snowflake designs covering every inch of it really livened the place up, and the enormous ice-throne now perpetually fixed at the head of the table gave it just the right "never forget who's in charge" vibe.

"The whole castle," the ex-head said to the other decrepit old men present. "She froze the whole castle."

"Hey, it's better than the whole country, isn't it?" said another advisor.

"I don't get how she can do all this, but she still can't use her magic to end the drought."

"I don't get how she can do all this, but she still laughed off my skating-rink-chain idea."

"What I would like to know," said the ex-head, his voice growing sharper, "is why the sudden change? The last few meetings, it looked like she was back to hiding her sorcery, and now she's flaunting it again."

"Oh, that's quite simple, really," an advisor chuckled, then said, in an undertone, "She's a _woman_. She's obviously having mood sw-"

"Good evening," said a voice from directly behind him.

The man turned his sentence into a coughing fit and then spun in his chair to say, "Ah, good evening, Your Majesty! Glad to see you've finally arrived!"

"I believe this meeting was called to discuss the current state of the castle?" said Elsa tightly. "Does anyone have any objections to the castle remaining covered in ice?"

There was a prolonged silence.

* * *

Several minutes later, Elsa was walking down the castle hallways, which were noticeably covered in the same amount of ice as before the council meeting. On her way to the bedchambers, she chanced across at her bodyguard. He seemed to be as inexplicable a bundle of nerves as ever.

"Did you do it?"

"_No__!_" he yelped, flinching.

"You didn't burn the pictures?" Elsa frowned.

"Oh. I meant 'yes.'" As he spoke, Fritz fiddled with his uniform's collar. "All burned up."

"Good. I'm going to bed." Elsa started to walk past him.

"But Your Majesty, isn't it a little early?" asked Fritz.

"It's fine."

Elsa arrived in her bedroom. There was no door, but there was also nobody else in the bedchambers hall, so she still had privacy. She seated herself in the chair before her dresser.

"I can't believe I never saw it before," she murmured. "I can't believe I let this stranger into our household and never _payed attention_ to him...and after everything that's happened! How can I keep being so _stupid__? _Anna told me _he_ was the one who asked _her_ out. And he just _happens_ to have been raised by the same trolls that saved Anna's life? That's not a coincidence... That's a motive."

Elsa's eyes narrowed. "I can't let somebody with an agenda get close to Anna... Not again. But... what if I'm wrong?" She turned her head away. "What if he really _is_ a good person, and I'm being paranoid? What would Anna think of me then?"

"_The question is_," said the voice, "_are you willing to take that risk_?"


	19. Parenting

A dignified butler walked down the plain stone halls of Arendelle castle. A charitable onlooker would have called him just on the far edge of middle-aged. Had they leaned into his scalp and squinted, they would have made out the last fleeting remnants of hair that was grayish-brown instead of grayish-gray.

Anders reached the first door and gave it a few sharp raps. "Time to wake up, Princess Anna." He was met with a half-uttered contortion of sound waves that might have been intended to be, "Five more minutes..." Anders rolled his eyes, then moved across the hall to do likewise to the second door.

"Time to wake up, Princess Elsa."

The reply from this door was perfectly articulate: "I'm awake."

Anders nodded in approval, then marched back to the first door to give it another pounding. "Perhaps Your Highness has your pillows crammed in your ears? I said it's time to wake up." This time Anders was met with an exaggerated snoring noise.

Before Anna, Anders hadn't thought princesses were capable of making sound effects with their mouths.

He was about to redouble his efforts when he heard footsteps behind him. "Let her sleep," said a voice. Anders reflexively turned to bow. The person standing before him was basically Anders's polar opposite: A beautiful woman who perpetually looked twenty no matter how hard she aged. Her brown hair probably wouldn't gray for decades past when Anders's had succumbed to it (And _Anders_ was the one tasked with babysitting Anna. Gee, what a coincidence).

"With all due respect, this is not helping Princess Anna learn to be punctual."

"You can wake her, but let me get Elsa out of the way first," said the queen.

_Good save, Your Majesty. I almost risked letting Princess Anna lay eyes on Princess Elsa for a few seconds, and then the sky would collapse and the earth would die in a fire, _Anders would have liked to say.

"As you wish, Your Majesty," Anders said.

He took out a keyring and opened Elsa's door. The bedroom was covered in patches of ice like boils on a leper – on the bed-frame, drawer handles, blankets, and anywhere else human hands could go. Elsa herself was standing rigid in the center of the room, wearing a facial expression Anders had seen on soldiers heading off to war for the first time.

"Good morning, Elsa," the queen said softly. "It's time for your bath."

"Where's Nanny?" asked Elsa.

"She was among the staff who left."

There was a silence during which it was understood this was as opposed to risking Nanny freezing to death.

"I'm bathing you now," said the queen.

Elsa shrank back. "I can do it myself."

"It's fine. We'll be careful."

Anders thought about how people shouldn't have to put several feet between each other to have a conversation. Then, he watched the queen leave for the bathing chambers, followed by her daughter. Elsa walked around Anders in a wide arc.

It went against every neat and orderly bone in his body, but Anders really wanted to grab one of the decorative vases and punt it into the far wall.

_Snap out of it_, he ordered himself. Anders turned to knock on Princess Anna's door again, but before he had the chance, it swung open of its own accord.

"Hi, Anders!" said a voice from around his knees. "What's for breakfast?"

"Ah, I see the siren song of food has finally tempted you out of your covers," said Anders.

"You're funny, Anders. Funny _looking_!" The princess erupted into a fit of high-pitched laughter.

"I'm pleased to see that joke still amuses you after the fiftieth time, Your Highness." Anders barely had time to finish his retort before Anna zoomed off down to the dining hall.

By the time Anders made it there, Anna was already seated at the royal end of the table, holding a plate piled with about twice as much as a human being is capable of consuming.

"I don't believe chocolate is a breakfast food." Anders snatched the plate away mere inches from Anna's mouth. She protested by making the kind of guttural honking noise a princess should never, ever make.

_She'll grow out of it, she'll grow out of it, she'll grow out of it_, Anders chanted to himself.

Anna's five-year-old attention span did a one-eighty from food to all the unoccupied tables in the room. "Wow, it's empty. Where is everybody?"

"We had to downsize the staff. Budget reasons." Anders was a little disgusted with how easily that rolled off his tongue.

Anna didn't question him. She simply accepted the plate Anders handed her with a tenth as much food and set to work eating.

Anders's eyes fell on her head. There it was, like a scar – the big, white streak marring Anna's reddish-but-not-quite-ginger hair. When she'd woken up and seen her new skunk stripe for the first time, Anna hadn't batted an eyelash. She'd acted like she'd had it for years.

Anders didn't like magic one bit. The kind that did something tangible like, picking at random here, making ice, _that_ was fine. What he took issue with was the kind that changed people. Anna had loved her sister's magic. Sometimes it had been all she could talk about. And then one day she'd awoken to a whole different world and she didn't even realize it.

It was beyond Anders's understanding how getting beaned in the head with ice meant you had to get your memories erased, but he was at least willing to accept that magic worked in mysterious ways. What Anders couldn't accept was what the parents had done _after_ the memory-wipe. Yes, he understood Elsa was dangerous, he understood the king and queen would never, ever, _ever_ risk their daughter's life, and he understood that Anna was a blabbermouth who couldn't be trusted with Elsa's secret, but deep down Anders couldn't grasp why they didn't just tell Anna what had happened, warn Elsa not to bean her in the head with ice again, and then go back to normal.

And now, thanks to that close call, Elsa had lost her nerve and was spewing ice like phlegm in allergy season, meaning even if they told Anna the truth, she still wouldn't be allowed to play with her sister unless the king and queen liked their younger daughter colder and stiffer.

The worst part was they'd been living in the new status quo for days now, and Anna had yet to realize it. The king and queen hadn't exactly planned on having Anna's memory erased, and she'd woken up the next morning acting totally normal. Nobody had the heart to tell her outright that she could no longer be within a few feet of her sister. The king and queen had occasionally used the "your sister is heir to the throne and therefore very busy" excuse, but Anna apparently hadn't gotten the message even after Elsa had been "very busy" for the eighth time in a row.

All of a sudden, Anders found it hard to be in the same room as this chipper, unsuspecting little girl. He found himself slipping out the dining hall and heading towards the bathing chambers.

He was merely checking on Elsa, he told himself. The queen wouldn't be used to bathing her daughter herself. Something could go wrong. Not something involving magical ice powers, mind you. Something _normal_ could go wrong.

Anders paused before the chamber door. What was he supposed to do, knock and say, _Hello in there, anybody freezing to death?_ Luckily the issue was solved for him by the door bursting open.

The queen stormed out. The dark blue dress she always wore was now covered in jagged icicles. There were even a couple smaller ones trailing off her hair.

"Your Majesty-!"

"_Scrub brush_," said the queen.

"Pardon?"

"From now on, we use a scrub brush_. _And a bucket of soap."

"Are you hurt, my lady?"

The queen let out a long sigh. "No, _I'm_ alright."

"What happened?"

"Anders, please go to the hall closet and retrieve the ice pick."

"Oh."

This, Anders realized, was going to be a long day.

* * *

One excavation later, Anders returned the pick to its place in the supply closet next to the ice scraper and the big bag of salt. Naturally, Elsa didn't know how to make her ice go away. That would be too easy. The only thing keeping them from being up to their ears in ice was the fact that it had a tendency to melt after a while. Anders thanked God every day the king and queen hadn't had a child with, say, rock powers that covered everything in rocks.

For whatever reason, Elsa's magic was unable to sustain liquid water, meaning once her ice melted, a minute later it evaporated away as mysteriously as it had arrived. Anders found this fortunate because he shuddered to think what effect Elsa might otherwise have on the water cycle, and also because he imagined her powers would be much less pretty if they caused mold and mildew.

"Eight years," Anders said, shutting the closet behind him. "She's been bathing without incident for eight years."

"Her powers are growing. She's nearly to the point of freezing _everything_ she touches." The queen gazed towards the bathing chambers, where Elsa was drying herself off – or rather, picking bits of ice off her skin. "And she's scared. She's been very self-conscious about not hurting anyone... again..."

"It seems to me since she became 'self-conscious,' there's been far _more_ close calls," said Anders.

"She knows she's dangerous now. She..." The queen brought a hand to her eyes. "She's been forced to think about things... constantly... that little girls shouldn't have to think about... Anders, sometimes I worry on that night, Elsa lost her... her innocence, and now she'll never get it back."

Anders waited for the queen to take a deep breath. "She was heir to the throne anyways," he said. "Growing up too fast comes with the territory." The queen nodded slowly. "Right now, what Elsa needs is confidence, not innocence. Have you met John? He's always making a fuss about his war wound, but his leg's fine. It's all in his head."

The queen pondered this. "Mind over matter?"

"Exactly."

"I see. I'll speak about this with my husband. I just..." She faltered again. "I shouldn't have tried to bathe her. I only wanted to give Elsa some normalcy in her life, but I guess now we don't have much choice but to change her routine to account for the ice." The queen bowed her head, then added in a near-whisper, "Anders... What if... What if we're doing the wrong thing? What if we're being bad parents?"

A hand was placed on her shoulder. "Most parents would've chucked her in the river the first time she froze a dirty diaper." Anders gave a wry smile.

The queen returned the expression. "What about Anna? How is she?"

"She seems-"

"I'm right here, Mama!" called a voice from the nearby staircase. "Look what I can do! _Wheeeeee_!" An alarmed mother ran to the head of the stairs just in time to watch Anna slide down the railings.

"-in high spirits."

"I'll get her. Stay with Elsa until she's back in her room." The queen hurried down after her daughter.

Once she was gone, Anders went to knock on the bathing chambers door. "Are you decent, my lady?"

"Yes," came the reply. Anders opened the door to find Elsa dressed in a child-sized navy blue dress with a girlish headband above her bangs. She looked exactly like the queen if the queen was very tiny and hadn't touched a drop of sunlight in her life. Elsa even had the posture down, standing with her shoulders back and her arms at her side.

"You look lovely, Princess Elsa," said Anders.

"Thank you."

"But you still have some frozen bathwater in your hair."

Ander's arm moved on pure impulse. It didn't make it an inch before Elsa ducked out of his way and bolted for her bedroom door. Elsa put her bare hand on the knob, and the door was halfway open before she realized what she'd done.

The ice was out instantly, crawling up the wood like it was alive. Elsa immediately withdrew her arm, but a good fourth of the door had already been covered.

"Princess Elsa, don't-" Anders was cut off by the slam of a door and click of a lock. "...Right. I'll fetch the ice scraper, then." Anders sighed and returned to the supply closet.

Any ice outside the bedroom had to be cleaned immediately thanks to Anna's tendency to turn up exactly where she wasn't supposed to be, but the king and queen had given up on cleaning the inside of Elsa's room days ago. It was like trying to dry up the ocean with a leaky bucket.

Anders deiced the doorknob just as Gerda arrived carrying a tray of food. "Breakfast in bed," she said with a strained smile. Anders smiled back and refrained from pointing out that breakfast in bed had probably lost its luster for Elsa by now.

He replaced the ice scraper and then left the bedchamber. He didn't like to admit it to himself, but Anders was relieved to be away from Elsa. Every time he saw her, he had to shake the image of a ghost lingering in the house it'd died in.

This was as opposed to Anna, of course, who was nigh omnipresent.

"Hi, Anders!" she greeted him the instant he reached the ground floor.

"Ah, Your Majesty, I trust your mother reprimanded you?"

"No, she just yelled at me." Anna sounded matter-of-fact, cheerful, and not the tiniest bit ashamed. "Have you seen my bike?"

"Why would you need your bike?" Anders's eyes narrowed. "It's not good weather to be riding outdoors."

"What does that have to do with any-? Wait, what did you say? The weather-" Anna shot her head to the nearest window. "Snow! IT'S SNOWING!"

Anna had not been energetic today. She'd been at her regular levels of energy. _Now_ she was energetic.

"YESILOVESNOWTHISISTHEBEST-"

"Not so fast." Anders grabbed hold of Anna's arm before she could blast through the front door. "You're not going out in your nightgown. Go change into boots, mittens, and a heavy coat."

"But Anders-"

"God knows you've been exposed to more than enough cold already," Anders muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing. Go get changed."

"Yeah! I'll get dressed super fast and make me hot chocolate while I'm out okay bye!" Anna shot upstairs like a bullet.

He had a feeling those mittens wouldn't stay on her hands the entire play session, but Anders honestly didn't care so long as Anna burned off some energy and stayed out of his hair for a few hours.

Anders seized the chance to read a novel in his favorite armchair, but he only made it twenty minutes before his conscience caught up with him. Being outside by no means meant Anna was staying out of trouble. Anders thought with a shudder back to the time Anna had broken a window, or the time she'd brought a frog into the castle, or the time she'd broken a window and brought a frog into the castle all in one go by hurling the poor amphibian through the glass.

"Princess Anna?"

Anders checked the gardens. No sign of any children. Then he checked the snow-covered courtyard. Nope. Not even any child-sized footprints. Anders had a bad feeling Anna had spent the past twenty minutes turning the castle upside down looking for her left boot (It'd happened before). Anders sighed and returned to the bedchambers hallway. He wished he'd realized when he'd signed on as "butler," the king and queen had really meant "third parent." He made it to Anna's door and peered inside.

There was Anna, sitting on her bed, facing the far wall. Her mittens, boots, and coat were carelessly discarded on the floor.

"Princess Anna?" frowned Anders. "Aren't you going to play in the snow?"

"Don't wanna," Anna said faintly.

"Oh. I see. And the hot chocolate?"

"Don't want any."

Dear lord, this was serious.

"Anna, is everything al-?"

"_When can I see Elsa__?_" Anna spun to face him. She wasn't crying, but she looked like she was getting there.

Anders took a step backwards. "Y-You should ask your parents."

"Can I see her _tomorrow__?_"

Anders didn't answer her. All he could think to say was that he'd had a sick brother once but Anders was still here and his life wasn't ruined and he was still happy sometimes and _Jesus Christ_, that is not a conversation you have with a _five-year-old girl_.

Anders ended up closing the door behind him. He was left standing in an empty hallway. Anders fixed his gaze on Elsa's bedroom door, which was only a few feet away from the closet where both girls' boots, mittens, and coats were kept.

Anna remained motionless on her bed until a loud crashing noise sent her onto her feet and into the hall. "What's going on?" She caught sight of Anders, then the remains of a decorative vase.

"Lost my balance," said Anders.

* * *

A dignified butler walked down the brilliant, icy halls of Arendelle castle. A charitable onlooker would have called him just on the border of completely senile and decrepit. His hearing wasn't what it used to be, but Anders was still well aware of the noises coming from the coat closet thanks to something he called his "teenager senses."

Anders turned the doorknob. There was a sound like a plunger being unstuck and then Anders was greeted by the sight of Anna and Kristoff standing as far apart from each other as the closet would allow.

"Hi, Anders!" said Anna, her face filling to the brim with red. "Kristoff, uh, lost a button... in this closet... and I was helping him look for it. Oh, there it is! It was on his shirt the whole time! How about that?" She hurriedly buttoned up Kristoff's undershirt.

Anders gave Anna a look that instilled her with the inexplicable urge to join a nunnery.

"Thanks, Anna, now we can get back to holding hands and gazing into each other's eyes!" Kristoff said as he squeezed out the closet.

"Did you know giving birth is the most excruciating pain a woman will feel in her entire life?" said Anders. "Food for thought."

"I don't know why you would randomly say that but okay." Anna took Kristoff by the hand and hurriedly led him down the stairs.

* * *

"Well, that was the most awkward I've ever felt," said Kristoff. "Okay, except for that 'peddler' incident earlier, but that's in like a whole other metric on the awkward scale."

"Eh, he's caught me doing worse," shrugged Anna. Kristoff thought it best not to ask for clarification.

"I think this is a sign I need to head home." He glanced out a window at the setting sun. "Besides, it's getting late, and I'm hauling more ice tomorrow."

"Aww, but you always leave early!" Anna groaned. "Can't you stay? It's boring here without you!"

"Maybe you need a hobby? Besides making out with me, I mean."

"Oh, Kristoff, thank you!" Anna said with mock enthusiasm. "You've opened my eyes to the hole in my life that can only be filled by stamp collecting!"

"Hey, not every day gets to have a rebellion and kidnapping plot in it," grinned Kristoff, motioning to his arrow wound. "Well, bye. I... I'll see you."

"Yeah, I'll see you, too."

There was a brief silence. They'd gotten to the "making out" phase but not the "I love you" phase. The two of them glanced around to make sure Anders was safely out of sight and then shared a kiss.

"Try not to get eaten by a wight while I'm gone," said Kristoff.

"I'll do my best."

* * *

Anna walked Kristoff to the castle gates and then watched him vanish in the distance.

Even though it was late, there was still plenty of light out, and Anna had a strict "sky's awake, I'm awake" policy. That meant she had to find something to do to fill the next few hours. Anna went with the obvious choice first, but she was once again blocked by Anders.

"The queen is sleeping, and she is not to be disturbed!" he hissed, placing himself before the bedchambers entrance.

"Ugh, why's she been going to bed so early lately?" asked Anna.

"She's been in emergency meetings, rationing out food so we don't all starve to death in a drought," said Anders, "but sure, you can compromise her decision-making by depriving her of essential rest for the sake of your own personal amusement. Be my guest."

Anna's next choice was to hunt down Olaf. She found him by the castle gates.

"Hey, Olaf, what are you up to?"

"I was going over to one of my new friend's houses," said Olaf. "He said his family's never seen a talking snowman before. Crazy, right? Everyone I know has seen one!"

Olaf skipped through the gates to join up with his group of kid-friends, but Anna was immediately stopped by the guards.

"Your Highness, you're to remain in the castle bounds," one said with an apologetic shrug. "Queen's orders."

"Oh, come on, that is so unfair! Besides, what if the wight-thingy goes after Olaf? Someone has to have his back! And- And, uh, when Elsa said I couldn't leave, it was really more like a suggestion anyways!"

Anna's flawless logic failed to sway them. Her final choice was to head to the gallery and hang out with the pictures. Unfortunately, while Elsa's ice had covered the burned bits and made the gallery much more presentable overall, ice-paintings were apparently outside the range of her powers, so the gallery was still empty. Well, Joan was there, but she didn't feel like talking.

All of Joan's friends were gone, and it'd left her in a bad mood.

* * *

Anders was really supposed to be occupied with his duties as chief of staff, but he couldn't help noticing Anna wandering around the castle like a lost puppy. Eventually, she went up to the bedchambers, and Anders found himself following after her.

He wordlessly glanced through the open door into Anna's bedroom. She was sitting on her bed, facing the far wall. Anders moved his gaze towards the place where the door to Elsa's old bedroom had once been. Elsa had apparently made sure to cover it up completely, leaving nothing but smooth, bare ice.

Anders walked through the empty frame into Elsa's new bedroom, where he was surprised to find her seated at her dresser chair. "Your Majesty, I thought you were asleep?"

Elsa gave a start and sprang to her feet. "Oh, I guess I wasn't as tired as I thought."

"In that case, you should know your sister is sitting in her room right now, bored out of her skull."

Elsa didn't need to be told twice. Anders watched her scurry off into Anna's room, shutting the door behind her.

Grumpy old men don't smile when they're happy, but they get this content gleam in their eyes.


	20. Fritz's Antithesis

When Elsa had told Anders she wasn't tired, she hadn't been entirely truthful – dealing with the drought left her perpetually exhausted. But when the choice was snoring away the hours or spending time with the sister you'd longed to be with for over a decade, there was no choice.

It wasn't that Elsa regretted staying up until one in the morning with Anna. It was just that by the time she finally crawled back into bed, she was vowing to close her eyes and not open them until at least noon, and if half the country starved due to her inaction, so be it.

"Queen Elsa? Pardon me, Your Majesty...?"

Elsa slowly opened her eyes and checked the time. Four o'clock.

_That had _better_ be p.m._

"Why are you waking me at this hour?" Elsa sounded considerably more peeved than she'd meant to.

"You told me to." Kai was standing in the doorway. "I was to inform you immediately of any suspicious activity around the town, particularly regarding the recent string of disappearances."

"Mmm hmm." Elsa's eyelids closed back all on their own. "Have there been any developments, then?"

"Err, yes. Another person went missing... right outside the castle this time. A girl in her late teens, reasonably skinny, strawberry blond hair-"

Elsa exploded out of the covers and landed on her feet, wide awake.

"Not the princess!" Kai quickly said. "Just some villager. But, Your Majesty, I can't help but notice of the many poor souls who've disappeared these past few months, nearly half have matched that physical description. Now, it could be a coincidence..."

Elsa sighed and brought a hand to her forehead. "How are we coming along on guards?"

"We've hired as many as we can, but the process has been slow. We've been doing thorough background checks on all candidates in light of the, err, previous attempt to quickly hire guards. And until we can find a new admiral, the hiring is going to be disorganized to say the least. Anders has been in charge, and he won't employ anyone younger than thirty."

"Alright, do what you can. Thank you for alerting me." Elsa had been stressing to the palace staff the importance of coming straight to her should any crisis present itself. Frankly, she was more confident her problems could be solved by freezing them than by hitting them with pointy sticks.

Of course, there was a chance this "wight" had magic of its own. The memory of an ice-eating sword sprang to Elsa's mind. Now, she didn't know where Adrian had gotten that, but she knew it wasn't exactly from Oaken's Trading Post. But – and this was the part that made her stomach churn – there was nothing she could do about that. Magic was impossible to predict or account for. Elsa of all people knew that.

Meaning the only thing she could do was huddle in her castle and wait.

"What about the new bodyguard?" she suddenly remembered.

"Ah, yes, we have at least filled that position..."

* * *

Fritz rolled over under his covers. He had slept exactly zero winks last night. He should've had no excuse. He'd finally been given his own bedroom in the staff chambers, after all. It was even one of the nicer ones with a little desk in the corner, a cozy fireplace for the winter time, and plenty of Elsa's ice covering the walls, which was very pretty and reminded him of her.

The problem was any reminders of how pretty Elsa was caused Fritz's conscience to hammer the inside of his head. This was one of two reasons Fritz couldn't get to sleep. The second was the lump under his mattress. If you were to take, say, all those silly portraits that peddler man had painted plus his fifty-page manuscript and put them all together, you'd be left with something maybe kind of sort of close to roughly about the approximate size of the mattress's lump.

Now, Fritz couldn't confirm or deny anything, but suffice to say there'd been a window of time after Elsa gave him that stuff to burn during which Fritz was unsupervised, and _anything_ could've happened. For instance, Fritz could've stowed the illicit goods away, face-down, being extremely careful not to lay eyes on them, and then spent the next several hours trying and failing to gather up the nerve to peek.

Fritz let out a sigh full of equal parts self-pity and self-loathing, then pulled himself out of the blankets. He knelt by his bedside and slowly, hands shaking, lifted up the mattress. There were countless canvases under there, all turned on their backs, hiding the pictures they may or may not have contained. Fritz stared at them. This was about as far as he'd gotten during his several attempts throughout the night.

Of course, Fritz hadn't actually _seen_ the paintings. He didn't know what they were paintings _of_. Heck, for all he knew, he could've entirely misheard that whole debacle between the peddler and the royal sisters. Maybe the peddler had just painted the sisters too fat? Yeah, that was it.

Besides, Fritz had thus far lived a somewhat sheltered life, so there were certain _aspects_ of humanity of which he was ignorant. And what you don't know can't hurt you, right? And if Fritz didn't know for a fact, that meant he hadn't done anything wrong! On the other hand... Fritz was, by nature, a curious fellow... and what possible harm could come from one little peek? Fritz's arm inched forward.

But then it paused. All that lying awake had given Fritz plenty of time for introspection. He'd come to realize that sometimes it was the little things in life that he appreciated the most. Like his perfect, twenty-twenty vision. Or his hands which, while admittedly pretty sweaty, were also covered in smooth skin without a single hair on them.

Fritz's gaze eventually did fall on a picture, but it wasn't one from under his mattress. It was one propped up on the little desk in the corner of the room – a small painting of a beady-eyed, gray-haired, lumpy-headed woman glaring sternly. Fritz's momma had forced him take her portrait with him during his move to the palace.

Fritz closed his eyes, sighed, gathered up all the overturned portraits, then all fifty loose sheets of paper, and dumped them in the fireplace. Before he had time to change his mind, Fritz grabbed the tinderbox and set it all aflame. He watched the fire turn the contents of the paintings into a mystery that would last the rest of his life. Somehow, the smaller the burning paper shrank, the bigger Fritz's relief grew. He felt... vindicated. More free of sin than any baptism could hope to leave him. It was like... he could finally look Elsa in the eye again.

"Fritz?" There was a knock on his door, followed by a feminine voice. "Are you awake?"

AGH! He hadn't meant right this second!

"One minute!" he squeaked, frantically stamping the blackened paper with his foot. A moment later he opened the bedroom door.

"Did you light a fire?" Elsa's eyes immediately fell on the fireplace.

Fritz looked over at the burnt paper, ash, and fumes of smoke. "...No."

"Did all the ice make it too cold in here?" frowned Elsa. "I'm sorry, I've been trying to use my powers to regulate the temperature-"

"No, no, it's fine! You do a great job, uh, regulating!" Fritz blurted out, wiping beads of sweat from his brow. "Did you need something, Your Majesty?"

Elsa shut the door behind her. All of a sudden, it occurred to Fritz that he and Elsa were in his bedroom alone together. Specifically, they were alone together because Elsa had walked into his room of her own volition. Fritz felt the sudden urge to change into his guard uniform, which, while ill-fitting, was considerably more dignified than long underwear.

He couldn't put his finger on it, but Fritz once again felt that peculiar sensation he'd had while agonizing over peeping at the portraits, only multiplied tenfold.

"Yes, I... I did need something. Fritz, I... you... There's been something I've been meaning to say for some time now, and... I've never been quite sure how to put it..." Fritz gaped in astonishment as the usually eloquent queen stumbled over her words, hanging her head in a manner that was almost shy.

A hundredfold! Multiplied a hundredfold!

"Fritz, when you first started working here, I honestly didn't pay you much attention, and... I'm sorry about that." Elsa met his eyes. Hers were so very wide and blue, and looking into them was like staring down a boundless glacier. "When I had nightmares, you immediately tried to help, even though you barely knew me. You risked getting hurt by my ice, and when the rebels attacked, you didn't hesitate for a second. You've spent several nights now at my bedside because I asked you to. You didn't have to, and... you never complained. You seemed glad to help. I see now that you really care about me. And that... Well, it means a lot to me, Fritz. More than I've expressed to you."

She took a deep breath and paused, seeming to choose her words carefully. "I guess I was so caught up in myself that I didn't notice before, but... I've come to realize that the two of us are... The two of us can be... really good friends." She smiled and gave Fritz a friendly pat on the shoulder

It felt like someone had rung a bell inside Fritz's head, and now the sound was echoing in his ears. _Friiiiiiiiiiiiiendsssssssssss... friiiiiiiendsssss... friiiiendsss..._Fritz had a rare feeling bubbling inside his chest usually only experienced by death row inmates in those precious few seconds before the guillotine falls.

"I... would... _love_ to be your friend!" he found himself saying.

"Thank you." Elsa eased up, seeming to revert back to her usual, composed self.

The part of Fritz's brain that spoke up every seven seconds wondered if there was any chance of segueing into the possibility of being more than friends.

_I don't know, _Fritz thought. _If she says no, it'll make things awkward, and I don't want to ruin the friendsh-_

_You FOOL! _snapped Fritz's brain._ Can't you see that's precisely what she WANTS you to think? You've fallen into her TRAP! And now THERE CAN BE NO ESCAPE! ABANDON ALL HOPE, YE WHO ENTER THE FRIEND ZONE!_

"I don't really know how else to show my appreciation," frowned Elsa. "Would you like a pay raise?"

"You don't have to do that," Fritz reflexively answered.

"Oh, okay, then."

"But if you insist, I'll take it!"

Elsa let out a giggle. It sounded like gently falling snow... Fritz thought about the voice of his good friend who he apparently was like a brother towards. "Alright, Fritz. I'm... I'm glad you're happy here, and I promise there will always be a place for you on the staff, but..."

Wait. There was a but? Why did there have to be a but?

"...I've hired a new bodyguard."

_Snckt_ went the guillotine.

"A... A new guard?" repeated Fritz. "A new guard besides me, you mean?"

"Yes..."

"But, but, uh, why would you need _two_ bodyguards?"

There was a brief silence.

"I... don't." Elsa was getting that look about her again which Fritz now realized was less of a "shy" look and more of a "How can I fire you politely?" look.

"Oh," said Fritz. "I... I understand..."

_Don't. Cry. Whatever you do, don't-_

"I'll go pack my things, then." Fritz hid his face, but the volume of his sniffle betrayed him.

"No, no, no, I'm not firing you!" Elsa quickly said. "I'm just... reallocating you. There's another job I have in mind."

Horse poop. Fritz had heard that one before, and it invariably meant shoveling horse poop.

"Here, let me go fetch your new job." Elsa moved for the door. "While I'm gone, you can introduce yourself to the other guard."

"Uh, yeah, sure." Fritz had already decided the new bodyguard was a jerk and he hated him.

_Calm down, maybe it won't be a big deal,_ he tried to tell himself. _I mean, Elsa just called you her friend. You have something special with her, and that can't be replac- _He was halted mid-thought by the door swinging open.

His long, flowing, dark hair was the first thing Fritz noticed. It was like black silk trailing off his scalp, and it came to a perfect spit-curl at his forehead. The second thing was his size. This guy made 6'3'' look like 3'6''. He was as big as a small whale, and there wasn't an ounce of fat on his body. His emerald guard uniform was unbuttoned, revealing a patch of chest hair poking out the top of his undershirt. This didn't comply with royal guard dress code, but when you reach a certain muscle mass, your shirts start unbuttoning themselves no matter what anybody says or does.

"Nice to meet you." The man flashed a set of perfectly straight, white teeth and extended a beefy hand to shake. "The name's Samson."

"I'm F-F-Fuh..." Fritz proceeded to get his fingers crushed into powder.

"And I cannot tell you how honored I am be serving under such a magnificent and dare I say _beautiful_ queen." Samson smoothly ended the shake and knelt to kiss Elsa's hand.

Elsa was skilled at keeping her face stoic and formal at all times, but Fritz had memorized it down to the smallest pore. It was only there a fraction of a second, but Fritz knew what he'd seen – Elsa had _blushed_. He could _see_ the subtle shift in her posture, the way her eyes flickered ever so briefly at that chest hair...

The guillotine had landed ages ago, and now the executioners were dragging out Fritz's headless corpse so they could tap dance over it.

"Thank you," Elsa finally said. Her voice sounded as collected as if she _wasn't_ talking to the manliest man in Arendelle, but that meant nothing to Fritz. He'd already decided she was madly in love with Samson, and one day Fritz would be an old bodyguard watching as the two of them raised ice-spewing neanderthal babies together.

"Now I'll leave you two to get acquainted." Elsa shut the door behind her, trapping Fritz alone in his bedroom with the giant set of abs with legs.

"So..." Fritz said conversationally, "you're gonna be a twenty-four hour bodyguard, huh? Must be pretty hard being away from your wife for so long... _Doyouhaveone__?_"

Samson let out a laugh that could churn butter. "I'm not married," he said brightly, "but you wouldn't believe how frequently I get asked that!"

"Uh huh." Fritz had to force his gaze away from the chest hair. Maybe if he didn't acknowledge Samson's existence, it would be like he wasn't real...

"But y'know who I would _like_ to marry?" Samson's big, ravishing grin nearly blinded Fritz.

"Haven't the foggiest," he said dully.

"I had heard the queen had ice magic," said Samson, "but nobody told me she was so _gorgeous_."

"Really?" Fritz's voice like nails scraping a chalkboard. "I hadn't noticed."

"What do you think, buddy? Do I have good chances with her?" Samson let out another chuckle. It was dawning on Fritz that Samson's smile wasn't a facial expression so much as a permanent fixture.

"Uh, no, sorry." Words were tumbling out of Fritz's mouth that he swore had never passed through his brain. "She's got an... ice-power thing where, uh, anyone who gets too intimate with her... freezes to death. Your... appendages would turn black and fall off. And then you'd die. Horribly. It's the absolute worst way to go."

"Oh, I don't believe any of those rumors," said Samson. "I'm sure the queen would never hurt anyone."

"Okay, but I'm warning you-"

It was at that moment that the door re-opened and Elsa entered the room, and she'd brought someone with her.

"Whoa! Is that my new bodyguard?" Anna let out a wolf-whistle. "What's _his_ shoe size?"

"Funny story, actually," said the hulking behemoth of man-meat. "I had to make a special arrangement with the cobbler. He had so much trouble fitting me at first-"

"No, actually, Anna, that's _my_ bodyguard," cut in Elsa. "You're getting Fritz."

"Oh." Anna moved her gaze from Samson to Fritz, her enthusiasm fading. Fritz glanced at the pair of size two boots sticking out of his clothes closet.

"Uh, Queen Elsa, could I speak to you for a minute?" Gathering his resolve, Fritz ushered Elsa out into the hallway. Normally he'd be too paralyzed with fear to take this kind of initiative, but Samson's existence had a strange way of motivating him.

"Is everything alright?" asked Elsa.

"Um, uh, don't you think it would be better if I stay with you and the princess gets that other guy?" Fritz stammered out. "Y'know, because you and I are... used to each other. It would be, um, impractical to throw off our rhythm at this point."

"No, Fritz, listen to me..." Elsa leaned in to murmur in his ear. Hearing her whisper sent a shiver down Fritz's spine, but it was a good kind of shiver. "Anna's had a... bad experience with a stranger. I need to leave her safety to someone I know I can trust."

"You- You think _I _can protect her from this 'wight' thing?"

Elsa shook her head. "That's up to the town guards. Anna's not leaving the castle until this mystery murderer is caught. It's giving her cabin fever. Kristoff and I have been so busy lately... I was hoping you could give Anna some companionship."

_But I'm _your_ companion!_ Fritz had to stop himself from saying.

"And Fritz, if you see anything suspicious around her... even from her boyfriend... I want you to come to me immediately. Can you do that for me?"

"Y-Yes, of course!" squeaked Fritz.

"I'm putting a lot of trust in you, Fritz, but I know you can handle it." She patted him on the shoulder again.

What Fritz had actually heard was, "_Ooooh Fritz, my sister is sooooo important to me, and I need somebody valiant and chivalrous to take care of her! If you were to do that for me, I would be VERY appreciative, if you know what I mean..._" By the time he and Elsa returned to his room, Fritz was feeling much more willing to guard Anna.

"Samson and I will be going now," Elsa told them.

She remembered his name? She remembered _his_ name? If green was a feeling and not a color, Fritz would be feeling positively verdant.

"Don't worry," Samson told Fritz as he and Elsa made for the door. "Queen Elsa is in _good hands_." He gave a painfully unsubtle wink.

The door clicked shut, leaving Fritz alone with the princess. _It's okay_,_it's okay,_ he told himself. _Guarding Princess Anna can't be that bad. I mean, how different can it be from guarding Queen Elsa, right?_ He looked over the girl. She was currently wearing a beautiful, expensive-looking dress covered in dirt.

"Hi," said Anna brightly.

"So... have you been outside?" asked Fritz.

"Huh? Oh yeah-" Anna glanced down at her filthy clothing. "I was gardening. My boyfriend said I needed a hobby and I was like, hey, how hard can gardening be, right?"

"Uh... But why didn't you change into clothes you wouldn't mind getting dirty?" said Fritz. "That way you wouldn't ruin your nice dress."

"Huh." Anna looked genuinely enlightened. "I hadn't thought about that." She conceded the point. She didn't, like, go change clothes or anything. But she conceded the point.

"Well, um, you wait outside my door, and I'll put on my guard uniform," said Fritz.

"What? I don't care if you wear a uniform or not. Try and keep up, okay?"

"But-"

Anna was already out the door and speeding down the hallways, forcing Fritz to chase after her in his long undies.

"Princess Anna, wait!" Fritz didn't understand her. Elsa had probably never touched dirt or sprinted anywhere in her entire life. How could this girl possibly be related to her?

As far as bodyguards went, Fritz wasn't in the best shape, meaning he was soon out of breath, and when Anna rounded a corner he lost her completely. Fritz leaned against an icy wall, panting.

Fritz could see it now – The instant the princess was out of his sight for two seconds, she'd get killed by the wight, and Elsa would stand over her corpse, sobbing, "This is all _Fritz's_ fault!"

Luckily, Fritz found Anna alive and well out in the gardens.

"Oh, there you are, Fits." Anna was kneeling by a row of exquisite bushes full of countless breathtaking flowers.

"_Fritz_," he said. "Wow, did you plant all those yourself?"

"Nah, those are Gerda's. Mine are over here." Anna pointed to a large mound of overturned soil to the immediate left of the bushes. It looked like the place dead flowers go when they've been bad.

"Um... Are you sure you're doing that right?" Fritz stared at the scattered plant seeds stuck halfheartedly in the dirt-mound.

"I'm a princess – We're naturally gifted at this kinda stuff," Anna said as she attempted to transfer a wilted potted plant into the soil by pouring it like a cup of water.

"Hey, look, here comes Gerda now," said Fritz, glancing over at the horizon. "That's pretty nice of her to let you mess up all the soil right next to all her pretty flowers like that."

Anna froze. "I just remembered something I have to go do. Here, hold this." She rose to her feet and handed Fritz her spade, which he unthinkingly accepted. Then Anna ran towards the castle at full speed.

Fritz didn't quite catch the meaning of this until Gerda arrived and started screaming. It occurred to him that Samson was probably making out with Elsa right this minute.

Fritz wondered if it was too late to salvage any charred paper from the fireplace...


	21. Cocoa Beans

"Mrowr?"

Anna was awoken by something soft and fuzzy rubbing itself against her face. She opened her eyes to find a brown cat staring at her expectantly. If any other animal had woken her so early for the sake of getting pet, they'd be hurled out the door almost as fast as Anna would return to sleep, but cats have a powerful hold over the minds of children. Anna cooed in delight and sitting up in bed to give Cocoa Beans a good scratching.

It took a few minutes for Anna to glance at the clock and realize she was actually up before Anders's daily wake-up call for once. Her plan came flooding back.

Anna had stayed up late thinking, and she'd finally realized why the door to Elsa's room was always locked – Elsa was a privilege. When Anna had stolen all that chocolate, she'd lost her desert privileges, and when she'd crashed her bike down the stairs, she'd lost her bike privileges, and now she'd lost her Elsa privileges. The only problem was Anna didn't know what she'd done wrong this time. But, when you thought about it, if she didn't know what she'd done wrong, she couldn't possibly apologize for doing it, meaning it was really unfair of Mama and Papa to punish her at all. Meaning there was nothing wrong with sneaking in a little visit to Elsa, now was there?

Of course, Mama and Papa would still be trying to stop her, but Anna knew she had one big advantage over them – she was much cleverer than her parents. They thought they could pull a fast one on her by letting Anna sleep in later than Elsa. That way, they could ferry Elsa out of her bedroom to bathe without giving Anna a chance to lay eyes on her (Bathing was one of the few reasons Elsa ever left her room anymore. Anna didn't think Elsa had been let out more than three times a day since she started keeping count). But Anna was way too smart to fall for that.

So here was the plan: Listen for Anders to open Elsa's door, then burst out of her room, and before they could stop her, run and give Elsa a big hug and build a snowman and be best buddies again. Foolproof.

Slowly, carefully, Anna crept out of her covers and pressed her ear against the door. The cat mewled and jumped off the bed to rub against her legs. Anna scowled at Coca Beans, putting a finger to her lips. "Shh!" She had to make this count. If Mama and Papa were holding Elsa prisoner, she was probably completely miserable and needed her awesome sister to come save her.

"Time to wake up, Princess Elsa," came a voice from the other side of the door, followed by the sound of a doorknob turning.

"AHA!" The "burst out of her room dramatically" part of the plan went off without a hitch. But, um, Anna might have been a tad overzealous and jumped out before Elsa's door was actually open.

"Anna, what are you doing awake?" The other problem was Anders wasn't alone. Anna could handle the old fart by himself, by this time he happened to have Mama and Papa with him. All three grown-ups stared at Anna.

"Uh..." Anna could feel her clevererness fading.

Mama traded glances with Papa. They had a way of plotting schemes without saying anything aloud.

"Why don't you and I go get some breakfast?" Mama took Anna by the hand.

Anna found herself being led downstairs. She'd wanted to demand (very politely) to see Elsa, but at this point Anna knew the response would be, "Your sister is going to be busy today," and she was getting really sick of Mama always leaving out the "and for the rest of your life" part.

* * *

Anders and the king watched the mother and child vanish down the staircase.

"You'll have to deal with her eventually, you know," said Anders. "You can't keep making up excuses forever."

"Right now, Elsa's issue takes priority." Like his wife, the king had a youthful look about him, but he still commanded respect with his rigid posture and pencil-thin mustache. His face seemed blank, but Anders had known him long enough to tell it was actually full of concern. Without another word, the king opened the door, and the two of them entered the room.

Elsa's bedroom was looking much better today. Most of the icy patches had melted and magically dissipated back into nothingness. It was Elsa herself who looked terrible. She was curled up in the fetal position on top of her bedspread. Well, actually, she was lying on top of the thick layer of ice on top of her bedspread.

"Good morning, Elsa," the king said gently. "Anders tells me you had a bad night."

Elsa feebly lifted her head from the pillow to face them. Her eyes were bloodshot. "It won't stop," she said in a trembling voice.

"Elsa, you're letting yourself get upset." The king's face was the picture of calmness. "Your ice wasn't a problem until you became scared. You used to control it so well! Just last month, you started making shapes with your ice, and you were so proud, remember?"

But his words only made Elsa tense. "I can't go back to that. I'm sorry, I tried!" She returned her head to the pillow and shut her eyes tight. "I'll just... I'll just stay here. The bed's already frozen anyways."

"Princess Elsa, you can't spend the rest of your life in bed," spoke up Anders. "Look, you can't really be freezing _everything_ you touch. What about your clothes?" His eyes flitted to her violet nightgown. "They seem fine."

Elsa shot him a glare. "I'm _wearing_ the clothes, and I can't freeze _myself_," she said indignantly, as if it was self-evident.

This was one of those rare moments Anders was reminded Elsa was still a small child. Personally, he found her reasoning flawed at best, but he had the uneasy feeling the magic didn't care how _he_ thought it ought to work.

Anders turned to the king. The look in his eyes meant he'd gotten an idea. "Anders, fetch the queen."

* * *

"And then the troll kissed me and it was really gross," Anna was saying through a mouthful of food.

"Don't talk with your mouth full," the queen said mechanically. She seemed to be trying to stare through the wall in the direction of Elsa's room.

Anna pouted, not that her mom noticed. This situation obviously called for extreme action. "Mama, Mama, look what I can do!" Anna launched a scoop of scrambled eggs out of her spoon. The yellow goop soared across the dining hall and nailed some poor undeserving soul in the back of the head.

(The Admiral swore and nearly fell out of his chair.)

"Anna, you know better than that!" Mama's attention was successfully acquired.

"I'm sorry, Mama." Anna put on her most adorable voice and gave her mom a big hug.

The queen chuckled. "You could get away with murder with a face like that."

"Pardon me, Your Majesty?" Just then, Anders approached the royal end of the table. "Your husband requests your presence."

"Of course." Anna watched her mom swiftly exit the room.

Two seconds. She'd had her attention for two seconds.

Anna stared at her plate. She felt weird. She didn't enjoy her parents scolding her for being bad, but the scolding happened to involve them laying eyes on her for a moment, so there was an overlap of interests that meant Anna had no choice but to misbehave. Funny, parents laying eyes on you was one of those things you took for granted until you didn't have it anymore. Come to think of it, Anna didn't just feel weird... She felt sad and a little bit angry, too. She wasn't used to all these negative emotions, and she wasn't sure they quite agreed with her.

Anna decided the best course of action was to scarf down her food and scamper off to Papa's study. There was plenty of paper, pens, and ink in there for Anna to use. Well, nobody had given her permission to use Papa's work supplies, but nobody had forbidden it, either. Anna figured she could understand her confused feelings better if she wrote them down. She'd seen Papa write things down all the time, and while Anna hadn't completely mastered the whole "language" concept yet, she got the general idea that writing was something smart people did, and, heck, she was the smartest person in the whole building.

At first Anna considered writing words, but that was something her tutor made her do, which meant it couldn't possibly ever be fun, so instead she switched to pictography. Somehow, a picture of Anna sitting by herself looking sad got transformed into a picture of Anna standing next to Elsa, and then Anna got carried away by the thrill of artistry, and by the time she put the pen down, she was looking at an entire portrait of all four family members and the cat standing in front of the castle with trees and everything. It was really good (Actually, unbeknownst to Anna, the picture was lacking in several key components of quality artwork, such as drawing everything in proportion and making the limbs thicker than a line).

Realizing it would be an injustice to deprive the world of her masterpiece, Anna scoured the castle for a parent to show it off to. She found Papa in the closet where the girls' gloves, boots, and coats were stored.

"Papa, Papa, look what I drew-"

"That's very nice, Anna, but I'm working right now. Show me later, alright?"

"...Okay, Papa." Anna watched him grab something off the closet shelf and then disappear behind Elsa's door. The picture hung limply at her side.

_Philistine_.

* * *

"Are you sure this will work?"

"I promise, Elsa."

Her father's face held unwavering confidence. Elsa took a deep breath and gingerly grabbed a chair leg across from the roaring fireplace. The white fabric over her palms squeezed against the wood tightly. Nothing happened. Elsa exhaled.

"Excellent." Her father beamed. "You've made real progress, Elsa. I'm proud of you."

The first thing out of Elsa's mouth was, "Does this mean I can see Anna?"

The slightest hint of a frown crossed her father's face. "We can't risk hurting her, Elsa, and she's too young to keep a secret."

"I'll make sure to always keep the gloves on, _please, I promise-!_"

"Elsa, calm down. Remember what we just said."

"...Yes, Papa." Elsa relaxed her face, mirroring her father's.

"The gloves will help, but they're not a substitute for true control. There could still be an accident. Your powers aren't done developing, so we don't know what could happen. You've caught us off guard before. Remember when you froze the floor with your feet?"

"That was only once..."

"But I promise you this." Her father knelt to hold both of her hands, and for once she didn't flinch away. "Once you have mastery over your ice – once you can safely touch things with your bare hands – _then_ you can see Anna again."

Elsa gave a small nod. "Thank you," she said quietly.

* * *

By the following week, Anna had realized the status quo wasn't going to change by itself. Elsa would continue to stay locked in her room, and Mama and Papa would continue to invent wild excuses to ignore Anna, and Anna would continue to roam the empty castle, drawing attention to herself via increasingly destructive means, and it would all keep going and going until Elsa was an old lady, Mama and Papa were scratching their heads going, "Didn't we have... more than one daughter once?" and Anna was standing in the smoldering ruins of the castle, which would have _still_ failed to attract any meaningful attention to herself.

Anna put her best efforts into averting this looming crisis, but there was only so much influence a five-year-old can exert on a household. Anders had taken away her crowbar, meaning Anna was fresh out of ideas for getting into Elsa's room, and her parents had started sending Kai and Gerda to punish Anna's misbehavior in lieu of themselves so that they could spend more precious time with the daughter they actually cared about.

Mama didn't even bat an eyelash when Anna charged into the study yelling, "Mama, Mama, there was a weird guy outside the castle! You'd better go arrest him! I think he wants to a-duck me!"

"_Abduct_," Mama said, giving only a brief glance out the window at the empty courtyard. "And we have plenty of guards protecting us. You're perfectly safe. Now, I don't want to hear you making up stories again." She returned to reading her boring legal documents.

"I _hope_ he abducts me and takes me far away from _here_," Anna muttered, slinking out of the room.

Okay, so attracting her parents' attention was a bust. Fine, no problem, that just meant Anna could focus the brunt of her efforts on rescuing Elsa from her room. Anna had to go about this carefully. Elsa had never been quite as brave and rebellious as Anna, so she would be a little scared to leave her room at first, but Anna remembered all those times they'd played in the snow, and she knew, deep down in her bones, that Elsa was her best buddy, and given the slightest chance, she would die to play with Anna again. It was simply a matter of waiting until their parents' guard was down and then pouncing. And that meant camping out and being patient.

Anna had had the right idea before – hiding in her own bedroom and waiting for the sound of Elsa's door opening – she'd just made the mistake of springing out while there were grown-ups about. Anna watched through her door's crack, breathing softly. She was totally committed to her steak-out, even if it meant she had to skip potty breaks (Her room didn't have a fancy adjacent lavatory like Elsa's). This would be the most important mission of her entire life.

Half an hour in, Anna broke down and ran to the toilet, but she was only gone a minute before returning to duty. Anna waited another half hour. Then another hour. Then a day. At that point, camping out in her room became less of an important mission and more of a regular activity, like brushing your teeth. She also might have let her guard drop a couple times, but she'd been having the best time playing with her dolls... To her credit, Anna did leap to alertness every time she heard a door creak, but it would always be Mama or Papa or Anders or Gerda escorting Elsa somewhere. No dice.

Anna didn't know how many days she ended up waiting, and she didn't care... because one day she heard a distinct voice cry out "_Mama! Papa__!_" followed by the creak of a door, and she peeked through the crack and saw a head of silvery hair but no grown-ups, and it was worth the wait, dang it! Anna spared a quick glance out the window. The snow hadn't completely melted. There was still time.

* * *

Elsa's room was almost entirely devoid of ice at this point. She hadn't thought it possible, but Elsa was growing used to not constantly freezing things. She'd actually read a book, reveling every time she'd turned the pages and watched as they didn't frost over and stick together.

The weight on Elsa's shoulders had been lifted. She'd begun harboring the tiniest hope that maybe, just maybe, she'd almost mastered her ice, and in a few more days she would see Anna, who would be alive and happy, and they'd look back and laugh at that stupid time Anna had climbed too high on the snow pillars and Elsa had hit frozen her head trying to break her fall.

Elsa lay sprawled across her bed, the workings of a smile playing on her face. She turned her book's page with a gloved hand. _Riiiiiiiiiiiip_ came the sound of the glove snagging a loose spring and tearing Elsa's hope to shreds.

The ice immediately turned the novel into a paperweight. Elsa cried out and tumbled backwards onto the floor, then skidded because suddenly the floor was icy, too. Had her hand even touched the floor? It was just a tiny hole in the glove, what were the odds of...? But then a bolt of magic turned the ceiling to ice, and Elsa definitely hadn't touched the ceiling.

She could feel it wriggling against her fingertips. The gloves had held back the magic like a dam holds a flood, and now it was all pouring out more violently than ever before. The ice almost sprang out again, but Elsa quickly covered the hole with her other hand. The magic pushed back, but she managed to hold it in place.

_You're not breathing right._

Elsa did her best to control her lungs, to relax her face, but it was all so much easier when Papa was here.

"_Mama__!_ _Papa__!_" Listen to that voice. She sounded terrified.

_Don't let it show. Don't let it show._

By some lack of foresight, spare gloves were kept in the hall closet, which was a few feet from Elsa's bedroom. She steadied herself, took a deep breath, and opened her door. It was the longest few feet she had ever seen.

Elsa took one step, then another, her good glove pressed tightly against the torn one. Soon enough, she was halfway there. See, that wasn't so bad, was it?

"_Elsa__!_" But then came the sound of another door creaking open. Anna looked a lioness fixing to pounce on her prey.

Elsa had longed to see Anna for weeks, but now she couldn't even look at her face. All her eyes agreed to point to was the streak of white hair moving closer towards her.

"Elsa, Elsa, do you-?"

"_No__!_ Don't touch me! I _said_ I'm not playing in the snow with you! Stop asking!"

Anna halted mid-charge. Elsa swung open the closet, grabbed a pair of blue gloves luckily in reach of her eight-year-old stature, and then bolted back to her room.

She was extremely thankful she hadn't looked at Anna's face.

* * *

Anna remained camped outside Elsa's door a while longer. She wasn't doing it because she wanted to play with Elsa or to see her or anything. No... No, that would be dumb. Elsa was a jerk. She was just doing it because... because she felt like it! Stop asking questions!

Cocoa Beans prowled down the hallway, oblivious to the situation. The cat pawed at Elsa's door and mewled. A second later, the door opened a crack, and Cocoa Beans slipped in. The door quickly re-closed itself.

Anna stared. Then she slowly returned to her own bedroom, crawled into bed, and slammed her head against the pillow. It was just a stupid cat! See if she ever gave it treats again! What was so great about it anyways? It was... _just a... stupid... cat..._

* * *

It had been two weeks since they'd had any behavioral problems out of Anna. That meant she was either sick or dead. Anders opened the door and stuck his head into her bedroom.

"Ah, Princess Anna, I wasn't going to believe you were being well behaved until I saw it with my own-" His eyes fell on the head of Anna's favorite doll, which had been sown to resemble her sister. Then his eyes fell on the body of the doll, which was on the other side of the room. "Princess Anna?"

"I'm not leaving," Anna said from under the covers. "I can stay in my room forever, too."

"Anna, what's the matter?" asked Anders, hating himself because he darn well knew what the matter was. "Do you want me to get your parents?"

"Don't bother," said Anna, returning her head to her pillow. "They don't love me anymore, either..."

* * *

Elsa stood in the center of her room, staring at the un-torn blue gloves she now wore. Somehow, she wasn't in the mood to keep reading.

That was when she heard the voices through the walls. They sounded faint from her room, but it was clear the voices were raised. "_I'm the king! You ___won't___ speak to me that way! Don't you ___ever___ tell me I don't __love__ her! I sacrificed ___everything___ for ___both___ of them! Do you think it would have come to this if there was ___any___ other way? Do you think you're the only one who hurts every time you see the white in her hair?_"

There was a reply too quiet for Elsa to make out.

"_I have had it up to ___here___ with your cynicism. Get ___out___, Anders! Out of my presence!_"

Never. Elsa had _never_ heard her father lose his temper before. She looked to the brown cat sitting across from her.

"Mrowr?"


	22. Don't Let the Wight Bite

"_Eighty__?_ Just for _carrots__?_ Was there a carrot plague and nobody told me?"

Kristoff gaped at the sign on the merchant's vegetable stand. He and Sven had come down this way to resolve pressing matters of the stomach, and the duo had been more than a little distressed at what they'd found. This neck of Arendelle's capital city was usually bursting with color from the variety of fruits and veggies on sale, but now most of the marketplace and been emptied of foodstuff and filled with hordes of loudly complaining people.

"What do you _mean_ there's only one tomato left?"

"I got here first! Fork it over!"

"_My cabbages__!_"

Kristoff exchanged glances with Sven, who was dangling his tongue out eagerly.

"Sorry, pal," sighed Kristoff, taking out his money sack. "Looks like we'll be tightening our belts for a while." He slammed a much smaller bundle of carrots onto the counter, alongside eighty Arendelle currency units (whatever those are).

"Ooh, can't do that." The merchant behind the vegetable stand turned around, and Kristoff's eyes widened when he caught those unmistakable sideburns.

"You! Hey, err, no hard feelings? I don't really think you're a crook-"

"Huh? Oh, you must have me confused vith one of my cousins," chuckled the obese merchant. "People say ve have the same look about our eyes, yah?"

"And about the rest of you," muttered Kristoff, glancing down at the merchant's hands, which were folded together with all the fingers touching. "And what do you mean, I 'can't do that?'"

"Strict limit's been imposed on the amount of food you can buy at once," said not-Oaken. "Queen's orders."

"Fine, fine." Kristoff shrunk his bundle of carrots even further. "Now can I buy them?"

"Vhy, yes- Ooh, but don't forget the added taxes."

Kristoff looked at Sven pleadingly, but Sven was giving those carrots a stare that meant he'd live the rest of his life in misery if he didn't get them soon.

A couple minutes later, Kristoff and his reindeer were trudging through the streets back towards their flat. Kristoff's pockets were much lighter, and Sven's stomach was much heavier. Kristoff had at least managed to save one and a half carrots for himself, though.

"Oof! Sorry, excuse me!" But before he had a chance to eat them, he nearly collided with a passing beggar.

The man was hunched over, limping, and, despite the blazing heat, dressed in a heavy, gray, and tattered cloak. "_Hun... gry..._"

"Yeah, I know, this drought's leaving us all hungry." Kristoff smiled warmly and handed over a carrot – the whole one. Kristoff wasn't so much of a slob that he'd expect someone else to eat something covered in reindeer spit.

The beggar accepted it with pale white fingers.

"Gee, Kristoff, that was awfully charitable of you," said Sven as the duo carried on their way.

"Stop it, you're making me blush."

The boy and his reindeer quickly vanished over the horizon. It's a shame they didn't stick around to see the carrot blacken and wither away.

* * *

The queen was seated on her magnificent ice throne, her luscious silvery hair flowing over her shoulder in a braid and her gorgeous sky blue dress hugging her body in all the right places. The door to the throne room creaked open, and a plain yet endearing boy entered.

"You had something you wanted to say to me, Fritz?" Somehow, Elsa's lips were perfect even when curled downwards.

"Yeah, I did..." Fritz took a deep breath. "You said we were friends, but Queen Elsa, don't you see... we can be so much more than friends... because I love you!"

"_Ohhhhh Fritz__!_" Elsa's eyes lit up with delight. "You're magnificent! But..." She hung her head in shame. "We can't be together. We mustn't!"

"Why?" gasped Fritz.

"Because... I'm already betrothed!" At her words, Elsa rose to her feet and sent a wave of magic over herself that transformed her ice-dress into an even more gorgeous frosty white ice-wedding-gown.

"No! Please, Elsa, you're breaking my heart!" moaned Fritz. "Tell me, who could you possibly choose over me?"

"Hey, guys!" All of a sudden, Princess Anna entered the throne room dressed in a wedding gown of her own.

"You?" yelped Fritz, totally flabbergasted. "But you're dating that guy with the reindeer!"

"Yes, I do love the princess," said Kristoff, who was apparently also present, "but there's simply no way my shameful blondness could ever compete with his flowing, dark locks!"

"His...? Oh no!" Fritz eyes widened as another person entered the room.

"Sorry, pal." Samson was decked out in a rugged black groom's suit, which still managed to leave a visible patch of chest hair. "I'm simply far too much man for any one woman to handle." He put his arms around both sisters.

"You see, there's an old law that said we both had to marry him after it turned out Samson was Hans's long-lost thirteenth brother," said Elsa.

"Goodbye, Fritz!" Elsa and Anna waved as they shrank into the distance. "See you after the honeymoon!"

"_N__ooooooooooooooo__\- Oof_!"

The nightmare was ended by Fritz tumbling out of his covers and whacking his head on the floor. Fritz took a minute to pant and wipe cold sweat off his forehead. He let out a heavy sigh. There was a nagging doubt eating away at the lining of his stomach and only one way to dispel it...

After changing into uniform, Fritz reluctantly exited his bedroom and entered the adjacent one. Samson had been given the room in the staff chambers directly next to Fritz's, which was one of many examples of the universe's unceasing attempts to make Fritz's life miserable at every turn. He found his new co-worker on the bedroom floor doing one-handed push-ups.

"Five hundred one, five hundred two... Oh, hi there, my tiny friend!" Despite the rigorous physical activity, there was no audible strain on Samson's milk-curdling voice. "Just doing a light workout before I start the day. A good guard keeps in shape, am I right?"

"Uh, yeah, I already did, like, a thousand of those. Earlier. While you were sleeping." If Samson's voice was the deep end, Fritz's was the kiddie pool. "So, uh, out of random curiosity, how'd it go with Elsa yesterday?"

Samson let out a laugh that rattled Fritz's ribcage, then absently switched arms mid-push-up. "We had an... interesting time together. _V__ery_ interesting."

"What day is the wedding?" Fritz sounded grave and sincere, but Samson simply laughed again.

"I was going to ask her out, but I didn't want to be too forward," he said. "The two of us should take some time to get to know each other before I make any advances, don't you think?"

"_Yes__!_" Fritz caught himself. "I mean, yeah, it can take a really long time to get to know a person. In fact, some people _never actually do it_..."

"I have an idea." Samson rose to his feet. "You can be my wingman!"

"Lucky me."

"Excellent, excellent!" He gave his new wingman a good slap on the back. "Now let's you and me go get the girls so we can start guarding." Samson stomped out the door, shaking the ground with his footsteps. Fritz followed after him, rubbing his back injury.

Soon enough the guards reached the bedchambers, where Elsa was already waiting outside her room. "Good morning." She nodded to each bodyguard in turn. In a parallel universe that existed only in Fritz's imagination, Elsa's nod towards Samson lasted much longer and caused a lustful gleam to overtake her eyes.

"It's an honor to serve, as always." Samson seized the opportunity to kiss Elsa's hand again.

"You... really don't have to do that so often," said Elsa, her face hardening.

_What's that supposed to mean?_ thought Fritz furiously. _Is she being coy with him?_

"My humblest apologies." Samson grinned and pulled back.

"Let's just head down to breakfast already." Elsa brought a hand to her forehead as she moved for the staircase. But before she could leave, a door opened.

"Anna! You're up early!" said a surprised Elsa.

"Yeah, I'm trying a different routine," shrugged Anna from the doorway. "How long do you have until you've gotta go do boring queen stuff?"

"Maybe twenty minutes or so."

"Awesome. Then that's twenty minutes you're spending with me."

Fritz resisted the urge to scream his thanks to Anna. He hadn't thought about it before, but the royal sisters spent a whole lot of time together, so even if he was stuck guarding Anna, Fritz could still end up seeing Elsa plenty. This wouldn't be so bad after all!

"Hey, looks like we get to hang out a bit longer, buddy!" said Samson, slapping Fritz's back again.

Never mind.

Even though he wasn't her bodyguard anymore, Fritz still took a seat near Elsa at the dining table. Whoops, force of habit! What a totally innocent mistake he made! Fritz stared at Elsa, whose attention seemed to be focused on her sister.

_Say something to her. Y'know, light conversation._

"Soooooo... Your Majesty, what do you think of Sam-?"

"Hey there!" It was at this exact moment that Samson plopped himself in the seat directly between Fritz and Elsa. Fritz gaped at the several plates Samson balanced on his arms, which were then deposited on the table with a resounding thud.

"Y'know, some people say otherwise," said Samson, "but I've personally found _six_ dozen eggs gives just the right amount of protein."

"Isn't there a food shortage-?" Fritz was drowned out by the sound of Samson eating.

Anna, by contrast, seemed to be picking at her meal. "Let's do something fun!" she suddenly said.

Elsa put down her fork. "I'm not sure I have the time."

"Come on, _please__!_ We can find something to do while we're eating breakfast." Anna picked up a glass. "Let's experiment with your powers again! You never got around to making water instead of ice after that one time, and, I mean, didn't you also move the water in the lake, like, telekinetically? Ooh, ooh, maybe it works on juice, too?"

"_Anna__!_" The next instant, Elsa found a wave coming towards her. Luckily, it froze in midair before it could dye her face orange.

"Cool!" Anna inspected the new orange ice-sculpture coming out of her cup, then took an experimental bite out of one of the frozen droplets trailing off the end.

"Let's not do that again, alright?" Elsa let out an exasperated sign and returned to eating.

"Why _haven't_ you made more water?" frowned Anna.

Elsa swallowed her bite before replying. "I've tried, but it hasn't happened again. Maybe it was just the stress of the moment."

This exchange ought to have piqued Fritz's curiosity, but honestly, he hadn't taken in a word they'd said. Fritz was too busy staring at all the hair on Samson's arms and the stubble covering his clef chin. Fritz hadn't even started shaving yet. There were late bloomers, and then there were flower buds that had wilted and died long ago.

As soon as her plate was empty, Elsa rose to her feet. "I'd better get going. Sorry I couldn't make for better company, Anna. I didn't get much sleep last night."

"You're fine, you're fine," said Anna. "Don't worry about me."

Before making for the door, Elsa caught Fritz's eye and mouthed, "Take care of her," but he hardly noticed. The only thought going through brain at the moment was,_ She didn't sleep much? Why wouldn't she sleep much? _Fritz's eyes narrowed and fell on Samson, who beamed and gave a "thumbs up" before following Elsa out the dining hall.

Fritz had likened himself to Sisyphus once. He now realized that was wrong. Fritz wasn't exactly like Sisyphus. He was like Sisyphus if there was a second guy standing on top of a nearby hill, resting against a stationary boulder while pointing at Sisyphus and laughing his pants off.

After eating, Princess Anna returned to her bedroom, but she went at a much slower pace than yesterday. Fritz actually managed to follow her without sprinting. Well, that was odd. Fritz liked to think he got Queen Elsa pretty well, but he was having a lot of trouble understanding Princess Anna.

Once they reached her room, Anna threw herself on top of her bed and lay on her back, motionless.

"Um... Your Highness, what are you doing?" asked Fritz.

"I surrender!" said Anna. "I've finally surrendered myself to the overwhelming boredom that is my life! I'm just going to sit here and stare at the ceiling all day!"

Ohhhhh, now Fritz understood. She was insane.

"Really?" he frowned. "You seemed to have a pretty full itinerary yesterday." The gardening had been followed by countless other attempted hobbies, such as insect catching, knitting, and even, at the very end of the day, stamp collecting. Anna had made a halfhearted attempt to pry stamps off the castle's daily mail, at which point she seemed to finally run out of steam and go to bed.

"Yeah, I can maybe find stuff to do to fill time, but I'm gonna be in this castle _forever___,__" groaned Anna. "It's purgatory. And Elsa's _always_ gonna be busy with queenly stuff and Kristoff's _always_ gonna be hauling ice all day and only dropping by to see me in his down time. No matter what I do, I end up bored, bored, _bored._ And you know why?" She sat up in bed to glare at Fritz, as if it was his fault. "Because I literally have no purpose! What am I supposed to do with my life, exactly?"

"Uh, so let me get this straight," said Fritz blankly. "The issue is you get to live in a castle with servants waiting on you hand and foot and not have to work a day in your life, and that's... bad?"

Anna nodded.

"You could... write stories, I guess?"

"Ugh, no, the only people who do that dorks with no social skills."

"Wait, I've got it!" realized Fritz. "You're a princess, right? You could marry a handsome prince!"

Anna stared at him.

"What?"

"You... haven't been working here very long, have you?"

Anna hadn't been kidding about staring at the ceiling all day. Fritz ended up standing aimlessly outside her door. He didn't really mind, though. So long as Anna wasn't racing around the castle, he had plenty of time for spacing out. Fritz was just in the middle of constructing an elaborate fantasy wedding between himself and his true when the real deal came up the stairs towards him.

"I managed to slip away from the meeting for a few minutes," Elsa said in an undertone. "How's Anna?"

Her presence normally made Fritz all flustered, but this time it was undercut by Samson hovering by Elsa's shoulder and leering at her from behind. "She... Well, 'really really super mega bored' might be an understatement"

Elsa sighed. "There's not much I can do about that until the drought's over and people have food again. It's becoming a major crisis and I can't spare any time. She understands."

"She also said she has no purpose in life," added Fritz.

Elsa pursed her lips. "She's being melodramatic. She's only trapped in the castle for now because this 'wight' killer is on the loose."

Fritz wasn't totally sure who this wight guy was, exactly, but from what he understood, the gist of it was that it was a monster plotting to kill everybody. "Hey, uh, about this wight... It's, uh, nothing your powers can't handle, right?"

Elsa turned back towards the stairs. "Take care of Anna."

Fritz wasn't as reassured as he'd hoped.

* * *

Night was not Olaf's favorite time of day. It was dark, for one thing, which made it, like, really hard to see where you were going. Well, that was kind of cool because then you could wander around the huge castle and have no clue where you were until the sun came back. Olaf had had some great surprises that way, like the time he'd wound up in the maids' changing room.

So it wasn't the darkness, he supposed. The part he didn't like was that thing where everybody lay down and shut their eyes for hours. Personally, Olaf had never seen the appeal in sleeping. It wasted time that could be spent having fun. But not everyone saw it that way. In fact, they acted a little weird whenever their sleep was interrupted.

Take now, for example – Olaf had started a one man band with some pots and pans he found in the kitchen around one in the morning, and then his bestest friend in the whole world Anders randomly came in, took them away, and locked Olaf outside the castle. This hardly seemed fair, but Olaf figured there was plenty of fun stuff to do outside, too, so when you thought about it, Anders was actually showing Olaf how to have an even better time.

Olaf wandered into the courtyard, but those nice kids who'd given him the lobotomy weren't there. Oh well, there were other cool things out here. Like those big statues of the girls. Or the guy in the gray cloak who'd just sneaked past all the guards by the front gate. The hooded stranger glided across the pavement like a shadow, stopping to gaze up at the ice sculpture of Anna. He chuckled softly to himself.

Wait a minute. Hadn't Elsa said something to Olaf about strangers? There was something he was supposed to do if he saw a weird person he'd never met before. What was it again...? Oh yeah, now he remembered!

"Hi, I'm Olaf, and I like warm hugs!"

The instant he entered his proximity, the hooded stranger pounced on Olaf like a spring-loaded trap and took a big bite out of his cheek.

"Whoa there, buddy!" said Olaf. "Personal space!"

The stranger spit Olaf's cheek back out, gagging. "Snow?" he hissed. "Ugh, that won't do at all."

Olaf retrieved the pile of snow, only slightly covered in slobber, and returned it to his face.

"You got my hopes up," said the stranger. "I thought you were a child. I like children best."

"Yeah, me, too!" beamed Olaf. "Little kids are so much fun!"

The stranger leaned in to examine Olaf. His face looked kinda... wrinkly, like an old person's, only other than the wrinkles, it wasn't exactly like a grown-up's face... "Aren't you a curious little creature? One of hers, I take it?"

"You mean Elsa?" said Olaf. "She made me, so she's kind of like my mama. And Anna helped, so she's like my papa."

"Ah, yes. Her." The stranger looked up at the Anna sculpture again. "We'll take care of that soon enough. Say hi to Elsa for me."

"Okay, I will."

And with that, there was the swish of a gray cloak, and the weird guy scampered off super quickly. He crawled up the side of the castle like a big spider or a squirrel climbing a tree. Olaf liked squirrels.

The stranger climbed through a window and vanished from sight. Olaf frowned. That guy had seemed a little off. Olaf would be sure to mention his new friend to Elsa... in the morning. She _had_ asked him to report anything out of the ordin- _Ooh! Ooh! Lightning bugs! Yaaaaay!_

* * *

The wight climbed into Elsa's bedroom, gently shutting the window behind him. He was quite good at sneaking and creeping, if he did say so himself. He knew all the best, darkest corners to hide in, places people never thought to check. Breathing heavily, the wight looked over the room. For a minute, his eyes fell on the center of the room, where there rested a small mound of snow with overlapping handprints in it. This one didn't seem to be alive. How strange. But then his attention was caught by the figure lying in the bed.

It was _her_, sound asleep. Beautiful. The wight took a moment to stare before continuing his search of the room. He found a jewelry box, a bookcase, a closet full of clothes that seemed to have hardly been touched... Nothing of real interest. The wight wasn't entirely sure what he was searching for, though. He'd come here without a real plan, mostly because It was going to chase him again soon, so he only had so much time. But for the near future, he was content to watch and wait.

But then a voice said, "_Who are you_?"

The wight turned his head. His interest had been caught. "That's a difficult question," he said, "but I think I know who you are... Oh yes, yes I do... And I'm glad you're here, because you've given me the most wonderful idea for a new plan. Something that doesn't rely on a silly human not killing himself."

"_Elsa is mine_."

At these words, the wight laughed – a sharp, strained noise. "Is that what she's letting you believe? No, no, no, right now the person who controls Elsa is her sister. But we can fix that. I can help you. I can make you... better."

He raised a set of bony, black fingers.

"Oh, my bones have been _aching_ for a chance to dust off my magic..."


	23. Leaving the Castle

Anna didn't know how long she stayed in bed, but she didn't care. She'd vowed not to leave her room again _ever_. Two could play at this game. Let's see how Elsa liked never having her sister around! That would show her! But then a thought struck to Anna – Would Elsa even notice? In spite of herself, Anna felt her eyes watering again.

_Creeeeeeak_. The sound of a door opening. It was dawning on Anna that she wasn't hearing that noise nearly often enough.

"Anna," came Papa's voice. Anna pulled the covers over her head. She hated this. She wasn't supposed to be sad, she was supposed to be angry! Yet somehow, Anna ended up letting Papa gently tug the covers away and wrap his arms around her. "Anna, your mother and I love you and your sister more than anything. Do you understand me?"

Anna found herself nodding slowly. All of a sudden, she remembered that she didn't like being sad _or_ angry, and she was ready to stop.

"The past few days have been hard on all of us," Papa said softly. "Your mother and I are doing the best we can, I promise you. If you're upset, tell us why, and we'll see what we can do to help you. Okay?"

"Okay, Papa." Anna wrenched an arm free of the hug so she could wipe her eyes. "Okay... Why is El-?"

"_Come quickly__!_" The door burst open, revealing Mama. Her eyes were wide and fearful, and her chest was rapidly heaving. "_It's Elsa_!"

Papa immediately released Anna and rose to his feet.

"Papa, Papa, what's-?"

"Stay here, Anna!"

The door slammed shut, leaving Anna in an empty bedroom. She glanced down at the beheaded Elsa-doll still sprawled across the floor, then hopped out of bed to give it a good, swift kick.

* * *

"Bored... bored... still bored... super omega bored..."

Anna was passing the time by lying on her back in bed, tossing a chunk of ice up and down through the air. She'd gotten the ice chunk by prying it off the edge of her dressing table, which, like the rest of the castle, was now perpetually frosted over. It had taken three hours.

"Friiiiiiiiiitz, I'm boooooooooored!" This time, Anna tossed the ice at her bodyguard's head.

"_Oww_\- I mean, cut that out!" Fritz said in the deepest voice he could manage. He rubbed the back of his neck and returned to spacing out by the doorway.

Ugh. Why did Anna have to get stuck with the lame guard? If she'd gotten that hunky one, she'd at least have had something to stare at for hours. Uh, not that Anna harbored those types of thoughts anymore now that she had a steady boyfriend.

And not only was Fritz a complete wimp, he also had that blatantly obvious crush on Anna. It'd been kind of cute at first, but it had dragged on way too long and now it was just annoying. Even now, Anna merely glancing at him was enough to cause the boy's face to flush. He stared down the hallway, too bashful to make eye contact.

A second later, Elsa entered the room from down the hallway.

"Oh, Elsa, thank God! Please tell me you have something for me to do!" Anna flung herself out of the mattress.

"I do, actually," began Elsa hesitantly, her new bodyguard entering behind her. "Since I sort of finished the castle repairs myself, we've had a little extra money on hand, and... there's an art exhibition in town this week. There could be art for sale there... to go in our gallery, since it's still empty right now... and... you could go... pick out what you like."

Anna raised her eyebrows, feigning shock. "An art fair? You mean, an art fair _outside_ the castle... that I can go to?"

Elsa shifted her head. She seemed to be staring at her own shoes. "Yes."

"I don't know, Elsa," smirked Anna. "I hear there's a murderous wight on the loose."

A small smile of her own crossed Elsa's face. "You're the princess. It's not like people won't notice if someone tries to nab you..."

"Oh, smart thinking. I wish _I'd_ thought of that."

"Well, that's what you have a big sister for."

* * *

Fritz stood in the center of the bedroom, watching Anna ricochet around like a bouncy ball. She'd gotten dressed at lightning speed and was currently tying her hair in a ribbon, putting on heels, and brushing her teeth all at once.

"I hope they've got some really famous paintings!" said Anna through a mouthful of toothpaste. She hopped on her single shoed foot towards her bookshelf to retrieve an art-guidebook. "I'd love to own this one."

Fritz glanced down at the page she'd opened to. "The... Sistine Chapel?"

Anna nodded enthusiastically.

"So I guess I'm coming with you? Is anyone elsa coming?" Fritz asked hopefully. "I mean, err, anyone _else_ coming?"

"Nah, Elsa's still stuck in boring council meetings, and Kristoff's hauling ice all day." Anna leaned in and added in an undertone, "And, just between you and me, I'm not sure Kristoff's really intellectual enough to appreciate this art stuff anyways. Ooh, do you think I could buy this one?" She pointed to another page.

"No," said Fritz flatly. "I don't think they'll have _The Last Supper_ for sale."

"Rats!"

* * *

Elsa couldn't help but smile at Anna's enthusiasm as she prepared to board the carriage. Anna practically charged out of the gates and dived into the seat.

"Hey, I'm really glad you finally caved in and let me leave the castle," grinned Anna, giving Elsa a big squeeze. "You're the best sister ever, you realize that?"

"Thanks." Elsa grinned back, but hers wasn't quite as wide. "Be careful, okay?"

"You know me. I'm always careful."

As Elsa watched her board, an advisor exited the castle and crossed the courtyard towards her.

"Your Majesty-?"

"Just a minute." Elsa grabbed hold of Fritz's arm halfway towards the carriage. "Fritz, please keep close watch on her. The exhibit's not far from the castle. You're to go there and back. No detours, and don't be out for more than a few hours. If you see anything out of the ordinary, take Anna home immediately. Understand?"

"O-Of course, Your Majesty." Fritz seemed preoccupied staring at her fingers on his sleeve.

"I hope you have a good time with the princess!" Samson called out from behind Elsa. "I know I'll be having a good time with the queen..."

Fritz muttered something indecipherable and then climbed in after Anna.

Elsa watched the horses pull the carriage farther and farther away until it vanished out of sight. She shut her eyes, forcing out all thoughts of wights. Nothing would go wrong. There was no sense locking Anna up forever. It was just a small trip.

Elsa took a breath, opened her eyes, and turned to her advisor. "Alright, she's gone. Time to start the Weaseltown negotiations."

"The word you're looking for," spoke a nearby, shrill voice, "is _Weselton_."

* * *

Fritz sat across from Anna, shifting in his seat. Sweat was dripping out from under the brim of his standard-issue green guard hat. You might be shocked to learn this, but Fritz didn't do well under pressure. Even now, merely a few minutes into the trip, Elsa's words were flashing through his skull.

She'd taken him aside while Anna was changing into her dress. "Fritz, could you make sure Anna stays gone for at least two or three hours?" she'd asked.

"Why?"

"Because... our diplomat's ship pulled into harbor this morning, and he's brought a representative from Weaseltown. We're negotiating trade with them."

"Oh! I remember!" Fritz had blurted out. "You've gotta do trade with them because otherwise there'd be a bad famine from the drought, but you promised Anna that Arendelle would henceforth and forever no longer do business of any sort with Weaseltown!"

Elsa had bowed her head uncomfortably at his words. "...Yes."

"But... if she leaves now for the art exhibition, Anna won't cross paths with the Weaseltown guy, and it'll kind of seem like you tricked... _Oh_."

"I just... don't want her to be upset," Elsa had said. "Let's keep this between us, alright?"

Fritz had nodded lamely.

Now, in the carriage, he was feeling conflicted. On one hand, he was sharing a secret with Elsa, which he took as a sign they were really bonding – He bet she didn't share important secrets with _Samson__!_ Ha! On the other hand, this was kind of like lying to Anna, and that put Fritz under pressure. Experience told him that Fritz wouldn't just fold under pressure – he'd become full-blown origami.

No big deal, no big deal_,_ Fritz told himself, fiddling with the buttons on his uniform. They'd get to the art show, Anna would have a great time, nobody would get eaten by a wight, and then they'd return home, and the Weaseltown guy would be long gone. Anna would be none the wiser, she'd hug her sister, and everybody would be happy.

"Stop the carriage!" Anna suddenly cried out. "We've gotta go back to the castle! I forgot my art-guidebook!"

"No, don't stop the carriage!" Fritz yelped to the horse-driver. "There'll probably be guidebooks when we get there."

"We're not that far from the castle yet," said Anna. "Can I at least run in and use the bathroom?"

"Uh, there'll probably be bathrooms when we get there!"

"Look, my bladder's got a mind of its own. Just turn the carriage around. I'll be, like, a minute, tops."

"I'm sure you'll live until we get there. You should've gone before we left. It's too late now!"

"Oh, y'know what? I think I forgot our money, too. Can't buy any paintings without money. We'd better turn around."

"Maybe we could get something on credit?"

Anna's eyes narrowed. Fritz was suddenly very self-conscious of his gritted teeth, hot cheeks, and copious amounts of sweat.

"I have an idea," she said tightly, folding her arms. "Let's turn around and stroll back into the castle just for the thrill of it."

_You know, _said the part of Fritz's brain devoted to formulating escape plans,_ I bet if you jumped out the carriage right now and sprinted for it, you'd be halfway to the border of Arendelle by nightfall._

"Fritz." Anna's eyes were boring a hole clean through Fritz's skull. "Why don't you want me to go back to the castle?"

Fritz mumbled something about a "random fit of insanity."

"I know when people are hiding something from me," said Anna. "I'm not an idiot. But you know what I _am__?_ The princess. And as princess, I order this carriage to turn around!"

Wow, Fritz had figured things would go south, but he hadn't expected it to happen so expediently.

* * *

There he was, smack in the middle of the courtyard, all five feet of the Duke of Weaseltown. His big, round spectacles peered at the royal sisters' ice-statues like they'd insulted him.

Really, he looked more like a _monkey_ with the face of a _chicken_, thought Elsa.

"I thought your sorcery was under control now." The Duke's eyes moved to the layer of ice now covering the building.

"It _is_," said Elsa. "I'm surprised you agreed to come here. I didn't think we parted on good terms after the coronation."

"I'm afraid I don't know what you mean," said the Duke, straightening his epaulettes absently.

"Your men fired crossbows at me."

The epaulettes went all crooked. "Which was _entirely_ against my orders, I assure you!"

"Well, then, you'll be glad to know now that I have control of my ice, crossbows are no longer a threat," Elsa said. "Have you heard about the recent rebellion? I defeated over two dozen armed men single handedly. They're all locked up on our prison island right now."

"Oh. What a... relief." The Duke put on the type of smile that is secretly a huge frown.

Initially, Elsa had had reservations about scaring the Duke into thinking she was some kind of dangerous sorceress who didn't particularly like him, but then she realized, actually, that was exactly what she was.

"Your diplomat and I crossed paths halfway to Weselton," said the Duke. "I was in the middle of less important business, but your sudden willingness to reopen trade intrigued me."

"Yes, I know we had our differences at the coronation, but we need to put that aside and do what's best for the people of Arendelle. And the people of... Weselton." Oh goodness, that word left the most disgusting taste on her tongue. As soon as the Duke was gone, Elsa was running to her washroom and gargling some soap. "Your people need the immediate benefits of trade, and mine need enough fresh food to tough out this drought. That's why I'm offering your country all the trade agreements you'd asked for at the coronation..."

The Duke's giant mustache twitched with anticipation.

"...for the duration of the drought."

The mustache dropped dead.

"A temporary alliance? Well, it's not ideal, but it's better than nothing, I suppose..." The Duke extended a hand to shake. "And it _is_ good to see you're sorry about your coronation, and your sorcery is _almost_ completely contained. I hope someday soon, you can be rid that curse entirely."

"Thank you," beamed Elsa, reaching to accept the handshake. "Your concern means a lot to me."_ Don't freeze his teeth together, don't freeze his teeth together, don't..._

This was no big deal. It was simply two people who both wanted to strangle each other being forced to kiss each other's butts. That constituted ninety-nine percent of all politics anyways. The sooner she sucked up to him, the sooner he could be on his way.

Of course, Elsa was so distracted by her violent hatred of the Duke that she failed to notice a carriage pull up or a redheaded girl storm through the gates, followed by a scrawny little boy shrieking, "Princess Anna, wait! I can explain!"

"What? Anna-" Elsa had no time to intervene. The instant her eyes fell on the Duke, Anna's face contorted with pure, unbridled rage.

_Crack._

The Duke hit the cobblestone with an audible thud.

"_That's_ for having your goons shoot arrows at my sister!"

"_Anna__!_" Before Elsa could even step towards her, Samson had already seized her.

"I'll see your sister out, Your Majesty," he said, his smile unwavering.

Elsa watched Anna squirm against the giant's grip. She wanted to order him to stop, but she found herself hesitating long enough for the Duke to rise to his feet.

"Not to worry, I'm quite a bit sturdier than that." He calmly knelt down to retrieve his fallen toupee. "I can see the princess is confused, but I hope this will have no bearing on our prior-"

"And another thing!" Anna shrieked as Samson dragged her towards the carriage. "You were a _terrible dancer__!_"

For a moment, hurt overtook the Duke's face. Then it turned bright red. His mustache quivered with unbridled rage.

Elsa started to say, "My sister's actions don't reflect-"

"_Permanent_," the Duke growled.

"Pardon?" Elsa was getting a sinking feeling in her stomach.

"If your people need food so badly, you can agree to a permanent alliance." The Duke coolly returned the hairpiece to his head and walked towards the castle's front doors. "I assume there's an empty room I can stay in? We may require several days to work out the details."

"...Of course. I'll have someone show you to the spare bedrooms."

"And I'll need some ice for my face... _from the kitchens__,_" he added, scowling at Elsa's hands. The Duke scurried inside before she could say another word.

Elsa's forehead was pounding. Days of planning and countless, lengthy meetings all down the drain. She took a few deep breaths and returned to the carriage by the gates, where Anna stood outside, flanked by both bodyguards.

The instant their eyes met, Anna hung her head, blushing. "I'm sorry. I just looked at him and saw red."

"Anna, people are going to _starve_ if this isn't dealt with," said Elsa. "And you can't treat anyone like that! We have no proof those men attacked me on his orders, and we can't go around punching every person who's scared of my powers."

"Yeah, well..." Anna raised her head, regaining her vigor. "_Maybe_ I wouldn't have been so impulsive if I'd had some _prior warning_ he was going to be here."

Elsa let out another sigh. "Anna, please, let me explain-"

"No, I think I've got it, actually," cut in Anna, her voice dripping with cattiness. "You were trying to open trade with Weaseltown because of the drought stuff, but, since you promised me you wouldn't do business with them again, and that was just _so inconvenient_ for you, you decided to ship me off to this art exhibit thingy, cleverly using my own desire to leave the castle to your own ends, hoping I wouldn't come back here while you were dealing with Weaseltown-guy and do exactly what I just did. That about right?" She glared at Elsa expectantly.

Elsa shut her eyes. "I'm sorry, Anna. I didn't want to break my promise to you, but I also needed to do whatever it took to deal with the drought."

"Oh, so you _had_ to trade with Weaseltown?" Anna raised an eyebrow. "Did you even _try_ to end the drought with your magic?"

"Anna, you know I'm not going to do that," Elsa said quietly.

"Fine. Fine. You know what?" Anna threw her hands in the air. "I don't even care about that promise. It was stupid anyways. I mean, the whole Southern Isles and Weaseltown can't all be bad because of a few jerks like Hans and the Duke. But you know what really hurts me? You broke your other promise!"

"What do you mean?" asked Elsa.

"You promised we're never going back to the way things were!"

"We're not!"

"Well, hey, guess what you just did today? Kept me in the dark for the 'greater good!' Gee, what does that remind me of?"

"This isn't the same!" snapped Elsa. "Anna, please, I am _extremely_ stressed right now. I'm sorry I did this. I didn't want to make you angry. And I promise we'll discuss it more, but I need to go deal with the Duke. It's important!"

Anna let out an annoyed huff, but she seemed to relent. "Alright. You go do that. I guess I've got an art exhibit to go to-"

"What?" scoffed Elsa. "You're not going to _that_ anymore."

Anna's face stiffened. "I see how it is. I already know about the Weaseltown trade now, so you don't need to get rid of me anymore."

"That's not-"

"So I guess you're _way_ too scared to let me leave the castle and risk a wight getting me... unless you need me out of the way, in which case it's safe to leave?"

"_No_." Elsa's brow creased. "You're not going to the exhibit because you _punched_ a man unprovoked."

"Oh." That seemed to knock the wind out of Anna's sails. "Right."

With that conversation over, Elsa turned to Anna's guard. "Fritz-"

"I'm sorry, I tried to stop her!" he immediately squeaked.

"It's not your fault," Elsa said with as much patience as she could muster. "I just want you to keep an extra close watch on Anna for now. She... tends to get herself into trouble when she's angry."

"Okay, extra close watch, got it. I won't let you down again, Your Majesty!"

Elsa turned and made for the castle, followed by Samson. She gave one more quick glance back at her sister. Anna was too headstrong to let it show, but Elsa could tell she was devastated. Maybe depriving her of the art show had been too much. Anna didn't really need to be disciplined, Elsa knew. Heck, she'd had half a mind to smack the Duke herself. But the truth was... Anna had been right. Honestly, Elsa hadn't been completely on board with letting her leave the castle in the first place, but if she'd already seen the Duke, there was no more point to leaving.

If it was a choice between a happy sister and an angry but safe sister, there was no choice.

* * *

Maybe this was a mean thing to think, but Fritz was a little relieved Anna had flipped out and punched the Duke. Now it looked like a problem with the princess's behavior and not with the bodyguard being an incompetent moron. He did kind of feel Anna's pain about missing the art exhibition, though. Oh well. Looks like they were in for another boring day.

"Hey, uh, sorry about all this," Fritz told Anna as the carriage pulled away. "I, uh, I wasn't really on board with lying to you and stuff, but the queen ordered me to..." Anna didn't reply. "So, uh, I guess we're going back to your room now?" Still no reply.

Anna's face looked kinda blank. Actually, if he'd known her better, Fritz's would've known that her face wasn't merely blank – it was the face Anna made when she was scheming.

"Uh... Princess Anna?"

"Yeah. Yeah, let's go back to my room," Anna suddenly said. The two of them made for the castle doors. "I mean, really, I'm getting too old for this kind of bad behav- _Look behind you, a three-headed reindeer__!_"

"_WHERE? WHERE__?_" Fritz spun around. His mind was already filled with the dreadful image of those terrible antlers, that horrific fur... but there was nothing behind him but empty courtyard. "Oh, very funny, pick on the guy with the phobia, why don't y- Princess Anna?"

There was nothing but empty courtyard _in front_ _of_ him, too.

"Um... Princess Anna? Hello?" Fritz stared at the nearby gates, which had been left wide open. Then he stared back at the empty courtyard. "I am _so_ fired."


	24. The Big Breakup

Anna was no good at telling time. There were way too many Is, Vs, and Xs, and she was pretty sure you had to do algebra to figure out the minutes. But, limited as her understanding was, Anna at least knew that if the short hand moved all the way around, that meant it'd been a _really_ long time.

She was in a contest of sorts with her parents. The way Anna saw things, either Mama and Papa could come back to Anna's bedroom and finish telling her they loved her, or she could leave her room and go to them. It was a battle of willpower, and no matter what, Anna refused to cave in. She had a resolve of iron!

"Mama? Papa?" The bedroom door creaked open, and a tiny red-haired girl peered out.

There they were, both parents standing outside of Elsa's room. They seemed a bit surprised at Anna's sudden emergence.

"Anna, dear, could you wait in your room just a little while longer?" asked Mama. "We'll be with you in a minute." Maybe it was Anna's imagination, but she could've sworn Mama had a sad look in her eyes.

Anna was getting a wiggly feeling in her tummy, and she didn't know why.

"_Mrawr_," said something around Anna's feet. She looked downwards to see a brown cat greeting her.

Anna stared.

"That's not our cat," she said quietly.

"Anna, please go back to your room," Mama almost pleaded. "I promise we'll-"

"Did we get another cat?" asked Anna. "Where's the old one?"

"Anna, I mean it, you need to go back _now_-"

"_That's not our cat__!_ It looks like it, but it's not the same-"

Arms wrapped around her. Before she could even process what was happening, Anna found herself back in her room. Mama deposited Anna on the bed, breathing heavily.

Something was wrong. Parents weren't allowed to be upset, and they definitely weren't allowed to cry. "Mama, what's-?"

She was cut off by the tightest hug Anna had ever received.

"I'm sorry, Anna. I'm so sorry..."

* * *

Every step closer to the castle heightened Fritz's dread. He'd searched all along the castle perimeter, scoured ever inch from the gates to the town, even asked the carriage driver to check the art exhibition, all for naught. Anna had dropped off the face of the earth.

And now the only thoughts Fritz could focus on were Elsa's words playing over and over again in his head:

"_I'm putting a lot of trust in you, Fritz, but I know you can handle it._"

"_Take care of Anna_."

"_If you do a good job guarding Anna, I will totally fall in love with you_."

Okay, those might not all have been word-for-word quotes, but you got the gist of it.

And he'd failed. Really, Fritz didn't know why he'd been expecting any differently, but... once, just once, on this one thing that was so important to the girl he was feverishly in love with, Fritz had thought maybe he actually _wouldn't_ screw up! Was that too much to ask?

There was nothing left now but to find Elsa and owe up to his failure. Fritz would probably get turned into a popsicle, but he had to do it. Time to be a man. Time to face the firing squad. Fritz shuddered to think what might be happening to Anna. She was probably terrified and alone, getting devoured by a wight right this minute...

* * *

_Oh man, what a day..._

Kristoff opened the front door and entered his flat, followed by his reindeer. After a long morning of hauling ice, he was ready to collapse onto his sofa and remain completely limp the entire night.

"Hi!" But he hadn't expected to find the sofa already occupied.

"Anna?" Kristoff stumbled backwards in shock. " Wha-? How did you get into my house?"

"Through a window," said Anna, sprawling herself across the cushions. "You really ought to keep those locked, y'know."

"What are you doing here? I didn't think you were allowed to leave the castle yet."

"Well, I wouldn't say I'm _allowed_ in so many words..."

"_Anna_-!"

"But I've been doing some thinking!" Anna said quickly. "And, I mean, if there's some kind of monster coming to kill me, it's not like it would know I left the castle either, right? And besides, I never heard Elsa freaking out about _you_ being in danger of a wight-thingy getting you, so she must figure your house is pretty safe, right?"

Kristoff sighed and gave her a stern glare. "Anna, I think you should go back home."

Anna shifted uncomfortably. "Yeah, I will, but not right now. To tell you the truth... Elsa and I kind of got mad at each other, and I don't think that's ever actually happened before, and I... I couldn't keep sitting in my bedroom, totally alone. I wanted to see _you_."

Kristoff sensed this situation called for a hug, and even Sven leaned in to nuzzle Anna. "Hey, it's okay, Anna. I'm sorry." Kristoff hoped he was saying the right thing. He'd been caught pretty off guard by all this. "But Anna, you can't let yourself get mad at Elsa. I mean, she's clearly got way too much stress as it is. She needs you to support her, not argue with her."

"I know, I know..." Anna took a deep breath before continuing. "But I get so scared that's she's going to... slip back. After the rebellion, she went, like, a week without using her powers, and she put on her old clothes and pretty much did everything short of wearing gloves again. And now she's confining me to the castle and hiding things from me, and... I can't go back to how things were... Kristoff, I can't live like that again."

Anna looked like she might cry, which set off all kinds of warning bells in Kristoff's head. He'd _never_ seen her lose her confidence, not even when she was freezing to death.

"Hey, hey, hey, Anna, it's gonna be okay..." He leaned in for another hug. "Look, I know you were lonely for a long time, but you're _never_ going back to that. It just can't happen. Elsa loves you way too much."

"Yeah... yeah, I know..." It looked like Anna was toughing this one out. No tears. Good, good, there was the girl he knew. "I guess I'm letting myself get just as paranoid as she is. And, really, I could never go back to that anyways... Know why?"

Kristoff tried on a small smile. "No, why?"

"'Cause now I've got an awesome boyfriend who I love a lot."

"Yeah... I love you, too."

There it was. They'd danced around those exact words for so long, but now that they'd finally slipped out, here both of them were, acting like it was no big deal.

The distance between Anna's and Kristoff's faces was shrinking.

"Wanna know something else I was wrong about?" grinned Anna. "I thought I didn't have anything to do with my life, but now I can think of something I'd like to do..."

"Don't tell me you've had a change of heart about stamp collecting?"

They both laughed. There was something in the air that made everything seem really funny... Like how the distance between their faces had shrunk even more, and they'd both forgotten to end that hug. Hilarious! It made Kristoff lightheaded just thinking about it!

"No, silly, I want to marry you."

"Anna, for shame! Have you learned nothing from Hans?"

"But we haven't just met! I've known you for, like, at least a month."

"No, I mean, haven't you learned that all married couples inevitably try to kill each other?"

"Oh, ha _ha_. For your information, smarty-pants, I didn't mean we should get married right now. I just meant... someday."

"Yeah... Someday sounds good."

"But... you know... if we're going to get married eventually anyways..."

"Uh oh, I'm not sure I like that look in your eyes!" Kristoff was joking, of course. That look in her eyes was driving him wild.

"And I'm gonna sneak back to the castle before Elsa ever notices I'm gone, and my bodyguard's way too much of a weenie to tell anyone I ditched him... Really, the only people who're ever gonna know I was here are you and me."

"And Sven."

"Right, and Sven, but forget about him for a minute, okay? Do you see what I'm getting at?"

"I... think I'm getting an idea of it..."

"Oh, well then, let me help make it a bit clearer to you."

Those learned in the art will tell you that there are two primary types of kisses. There are the quick, shy kisses that couples give when they wuv each other, and then there are the ones couples give when they want to suck each other's faces off through their mouths.

* * *

"I hope everything is to your liking?"

The Duke of Weaseltown scrutinized his dwellings before dropping his bags. He'd been given one of the nicer guests bedrooms, which Elsa had honestly been saving for guests she _didn't_ loathe entirely, and Elsa had even gritted her teeth and erased all the ice covering it for the sake of reducing the amount of things he could complain about.

"It'll do," said the Duke. "But I still need that ice for my face."

"Oh, look, here comes a maid with it now."

A kind of triangular trade went on behind the Duke's back. Elsa slipped Gerda a sackful of ice cubes, then Gerda handed it to the Duke, then both women snickered quietly. The Duke absently brought the bag to his bruised face. Had he been paying more attention, he might have noticed it was made from the same type of cloth as Elsa's dress.

"Y-Your Majesty?" It was at this moment that a scrawny boy entered the room, a look of defeat on his face.

"Fritz?" Elsa's eyebrows raised. "Why aren't you guarding Anna?"

"It's not my fault! She tricked me! Your sister is an evil mastermind!"

"_Fritz__!_"

* * *

"Sorry, pal, but you need to stay out here tonight."

Kristoff was dragging a hurt and confused reindeer into the stables outside his flat. Sven let out a grunt of frustration and tried to escape, but Kristoff locked the stable door.

"Look, it's only for tonight, okay, buddy?" He tossed his friend some carrots to pacify him and then slipped back up the stairs to his room.

Sven chewed his veggies contently, but he was still a bit annoyed. He'd slept next to Kristoff every night since they were kids, and now all of a sudden he was being locked up for no reason whatsoever! Humans were so weird. One minute they're all friendly, even if they do wear those bizarre "clothes" things, and the next minute they don't want you around and they're shedding the things all over the floor!

* * *

"And you're certain you checked everywhere?"

"Yeah, I don't think she's anywhere near the castle!"

The entire palace was on high alert, with Samson and the other guards dispersed throughout the grounds, searching every nook and cranny. Meanwhile, Elsa and Fritz were dashing down the castle hallways, as if running aimlessly could do anything to help them find Anna.

Elsa's pulse was pounding in her ears, and her stomach was so tight she had to stop running for a moment and lean against the wall. How could she have let this happen? No matter how many warnings and second chances she got, Elsa continued being stupid. She should've known! Should've seen this coming a mile away!

Of course Anna was nowhere in the castle. She hated being trapped here, and now, thanks to Elsa, she'd had her freedom dangled over her head and jerked away, and it had been too much. Why hadn't Elsa just let her go to the exhibition?

"Elsa, are you okay?" asked a panicked, squeaky voice.

"W-What...?"

"I mean, uh, are you alright, Your Majesty?" Fritz cleared his throat. "Your, uh, your breathing doesn't sound too good."

Now that he'd pointed it out, Elsa was aware of the continuous, ragged gasps coming from her mouth.

"Do... Do you need to go lie down?" Fritz's shaking voice didn't exactly inspire confidence.

No, Elsa did _not_ need to lie down! She needed to find Anna before it was too late! But somehow, Elsa found herself nodding. Her head felt like a lead weight, and when she tried to take a step forward, she nearly lost her balance.

"Queen Elsa!" Luckily, Fritz readily caught her. "Do you need a doctor?"

"No. Take me to my room..." Elsa slung an arm around Fritz's shoulder and put most of her weight on him. Though her brain was currently a heavy fog, Elsa was dimly aware that regular people weren't supposed to need help walking, even when they were scared and upset.

After what felt like a lifetime, the pair reached Elsa's bedroom, and Fritz dropped her onto her bed.

"Thank you..." Elsa said faintly. "I'll be fine, Fritz. Don't get a doctor. Keep looking for Anna."

"Okay, Your Majesty." Fritz hurried out the room.

Elsa was having nightmares again, and she wasn't even asleep this time. Veiled, shadowy monsters... wights... She slipped out of bed and nearly tumbled to the floor. Elsa took a tentative step forward, then raised her head to look around the empty room. "Help... me..."

"_Anna did this on purpose_." She was still there. Her voice filled Elsa with the slightest bit of reassurance.

"No... She wouldn't do that to me..."

"_The wight didn't take her. She left home on her own. You know where she would go_."

"To... him?"

"_Go. There's still time_."

* * *

"Your Majesty?"

A minute later, Fritz returned with a palace physician. But the bedroom was empty.

* * *

Anna and Kristoff had reached the "snuggle" phase of the night, which wasn't quite as exciting.

"Well, I don't know about you, but I'm feeling a _lot_ better now..." Anna said slyly.

Kristoff sighed. "I think it's time for you to head home, princess." At some point during the night, that word had turned from a formality into a term of endearment. "It's getting pretty late."

"Eh, you worry too much!" Anna finished tying the back of her dress and made for the front door. "I bet nobody even knows I'm gone." She opened it to find an angry-looking Snow Queen standing on the welcome mat. "_Agh__!_" The door slammed shut.

Anna turned back around. "Uh, maybe I should go out the back-?"

"Anna." Kristoff gave her a disapproving look he'd learned from Sven.

"Alright, alright..." Anna braced herself and re-opened the door. "Elsa! How funny to see you here! Small world, huh-?"

"Get in the carriage." Elsa's voice alone made Anna's blood run cold, no powers required. "No games." Elsa pointed to the carriage that a few hours ago had been intended to take Anna to the exhibition. Only now, parked outside Kristoff's flat, it didn't seem as inviting.

"Elsa, wait, I can explain-"

"Do you have _any idea_ what you did to me?" There was a look in Elsa's eyes Anna had seen once before... on a frozen lake, staring down a man with a sword. "People have been disappearing right outside our castle. Teenage girls. I thought you were _dead_, Anna. And then it turns out you did all this just to fool around with your boyfriend."

Anna stepped back. Her breath was caught in her throat. "Elsa, I... I had no idea. I mean, I knew people were going missing, but I didn't think you were going to... I... I was upset... I wanted to see Kristoff to, y'know, to comfort me..."

Elsa peered around the flat. Her eyes skimmed over Kristoff's undershirt, the blanket half-covering the sofa, and the strap on Anna's dress, which had fallen off, exposing a bare shoulder.

"It looks like you were _very_ comforted," she said dryly.

Anna's face was about the same color as her hair. "I didn't plan on it." She failed to meet Elsa's eyes. "Stuff just... happened."

"Anna, I can't believe I even have to point this out to you, but you're young, you're not married, and _you could have gotten pregnant._"

There was an immediate and blush-inducing assurance from both boyfriend and girlfriend that, given the specific activities of the night, pregnancy would be an anatomical impossibility. Elsa seemed less than impressed by their recount.

"Look, none of this is Kristoff's fault, okay?" said Anna. "I went to him."

"For what it's worth," spoke up Kristoff, "I actually agree with you, Your, uh, Your Majesty. I don't want to see Anna eaten by some monster, either. But I don't think that means we should spend the rest of our lives hiding from-"

"I don't want to hear it," Elsa cut in sharply. "I've had enough of you. You and your trolls have helped my family, and I owe you, but you've gotten _too close_."

"But-"

"I don't know you." Elsa stormed into the flat, closing the gap between herself and him. "I don't _trust_ you. And you're _not family_. You're staying away from my sister."

"But I-"

"Do you remember our conversation about this?" Elsa's eyes narrowed. "I'm saying the word now."

Kristoff looked like he'd been punched in the face. "Yeah... Yeah, okay."

"What? No, Elsa, quit it!" Anna placed herself between the two, her eyes wide and trembling. "Kristoff didn't do anything wrong! I... I love him!"

Elsa let out an indignant huff. "Fine. Say your goodbyes, then. But after that, you're getting in the carriage." She went back out the door, leaving the two alone.

For a minute, Kristoff and Anna stood in stunned silence.

"...Kristoff?" Anna's throat felt oddly dry. "We're gonna get this worked out, okay? She didn't mean it-"

"Anna, no." Kristoff's voice sounded really, really tired. And defeated. "I can see I'm getting between you and your sister, and... and I promised Elsa that if I ever did anything out of line..."

Anna felt about like a little girl who'd discovered there really _was_ a monster under the bed. "What are you saying?"

"Look, Anna, you're a great girl, but... you started rushing things, and I let you... But I can't let you make me your one shot at happiness in life. I mean, if I did, how would I be any different from Hans? Before we knew he was an evil lunatic, I mean."

"Fine, we can call this whole night a mistake if you want," said Anna, a note of pleading in her voice. "But that doesn't mean Elsa's right!"

"Yeah, but..." Kristoff let out another lengthy sigh. "Anna, she's your sister, and she clearly needs you. I'm just some random guy you met, and I like to think I'm mostly emotionally stable at the moment. If she's going to draw this ultimatum, you need to pick her."

"There doesn't have to _be_ an ultimatum! I love both of you!"

Kristoff looked away, hiding his face. "If I'm getting in the way, I need to back off. Elsa's got enough on her plate without having to worry about me."

"Kristoff, no, please, I need you-"

"Sorry." He put his hands on her shoulders. She didn't get a hug. Didn't get a kiss. Hands on her shoulders.

* * *

Elsa sat inside the carriage, waiting. Her head was pounding, her legs ached, and altogether she felt like she was being gnawed apart from the inside out. Elsa closed her eyes, forcing herself to take even, regular breaths.

Anna exited the flat and marched straight for the carriage, throwing herself onto the seat opposite Elsa. "He broke up with me," she said tightly. "I hope you're happy."

As soon as Anna was seated, Elsa ordered the driver to move and didn't speak again until Kristoff's flat was far out of sight. The carriage rolled through the city, making a bee-line for the castle.

"What part of this situation don't you understand?" Elsa finally said, her voice as calm and collected as if she were addressing her council. "There's a _monster_ coming to _kill_ you."

"What makes you so sure it's coming after me? We don't even know if this wight's real or if it's just a regular criminal-"

"_Do you have a death wish__?_" snapped Elsa.

"What? Of course not!"

"Then why are you always like this? You act on impulse and ignore the consequences! You were insistent about Hans even after I tried to warn you, and you didn't stop being insistent until he was in the process of _murdering you._"

"Yes, I _know_ I was wrong, I'm trying to do better-"

"But that wasn't the only time! When I ran away, you went after me into the freezing cold all by yourself! You climbed a mountain, you got near me when my powers were out of control and froze your heart, and you gave Adrian _attitude_ while he had a sword to your throat! The only reason you've survived any of that is because you've been _extremely_ lucky!"

Anna was more than a little disarmed by the outburst. "I... I didn't _mean_ to do any of that stuff. I guess I've let myself be a little... reckless."

"Stupid," corrected Elsa. "And it stops now. Anna, I only want to be your sister, but I can see now that isn't enough. Apparently, I also need to be your disciplinarian. From now on, consider yourself grounded."

Anna's mouth went agape. "What?"

"You're confined to your bedroom until the end of the summer. Possibly longer."

"_You're not my mom, Elsa__!_"

That shut Elsa up. A silence fell over the carriage as it dawned on Anna what exactly she'd just said.

"Oh my God! I'm sorry! I didn't mean-"

"No, no... You're right. I'm not." Elsa didn't raise her voice. Didn't even seem angry. Her face was a blank slab. "But I am the queen. I have every right to do this."

It was at this point that the carriage crossed through the gates into the palace grounds. Elsa halted the vehicle and leaned out the window to address the guards. "Once we're inside, shut the gates and put the palace into lockdown."

"Oh, of course, why stop at breaking just _two_ of your promises?" said Anna flatly.

Elsa leaned back in and turned to her. "It's not the same as before, Anna. We're only waiting for the town guard to catch this wight, or at least find good evidence it's left town. After that, the gates are opening right back."

"Yeah, sure, whatever."

Not another word was spoken until they were out of the carriage. The sisters were immediately greeted by a swarm of worried staff members, Fritz and Samson at the lead.

"You found her!" Fritz sighed in relief.

"Fritz, follow us to Anna's room," ordered Elsa. "You stay here, Samson. I'll come back for you." There was no real reason to exclude Samson, actually. Elsa just wanted to delay having to put up with that womanizing meathead for as long as possible.

Anna, for her part, remained silent and stoic the entire trip upstairs, even obediently walking into her room. But once inside, she said, voice shaking, "I hope you realize what you're doing. I spent _thirteen years_ alone, Elsa."

"You know what?" said Elsa quietly. "I know they hurt you, but at least our parents kept you alive."

That was the last straw. "_You know what? You could've __spoken__ to me, you bitch! Would the sound waves have frozen my head, too? I lost count of how many times I came to you! I came to you after the __funeral__, and what did I hear from you? Not a word! Three years, Elsa! I spend three years _completely_ alone instead of just _mostly_ alone_!"

It felt like someone had driven a knife between Elsa's eyes. And into her stomach. Dizzy, too. Breathing definitely wrong. She hobbled for the door.

"Anna." Elsa sounded so much stronger than she felt. "I'm sorry, but I will _never_ let anyone hurt you. Not even yourself." By pure habit, her hand went for the doorknob.

Anna remained silent, but her eyes were saying, _You so much as touch that doorknob and see what happens. I dare you._

Elsa caught herself and withdrew her hand. "Fritz, stand in the doorway. Makes sure Anna stays put."

He did as he was told (Even Fritz knew enough to keep his nose out of this one. The usage of the b-word had clued him in).

Anna snorted. "The door's just a metaphor," she mumbled. "Doesn't change anything..."

As soon as she was out of Anna's line of sight, Elsa bolted for her own bedroom and threw herself onto the floor, chest heaving.

"What did I just do?"

"_You kept her safe_," answered the mirror.

* * *

The wight prided himself in finding the best hiding spots to watch and listen from. While it was a shame the sisters had ever had to grow up from those precious children, it at least meant that they'd grown past the stage of childish fears. This, in turn, meant the wight could hide under the princess's bed without worrying about anyone checking it for monsters.

He had to be sure and keep quiet, though. He'd almost burst out laughing at the sound of his worst enemy, directly above him, bawling her eyes out.


	25. Severed Ties

Sunlight streamed through the bedroom window, revealing a girl lying under the covers, wide awake, red-eyed, and overall not very well-rested. Anna sat up in bed and glanced at the door. The frame was still open, but it was blocked by a skinny boy in a guard uniform, thus confirming Anna's fears that the previous day had not, in fact, been a nightmare.

Let's recap: Anna was currently grounded and boyfriendless, and she'd lost it and flipped out on her sister for the first time in their entire lives.

Ever since that little ordeal where she'd quit using her powers, Anna had been terrified Elsa would return their living arrangements to pre-coronation settings, and, boy, she hadn't just done it, she'd done it with flying colors. And how had Anna reacted? She'd screamed at, insulted, and done her darnedest to guilt-trip Elsa, which not only hadn't accomplished anything, but was about the sisterly equivalent of tipping over a cripple's wheelchair and then sneering at them when they couldn't get back on their feet. In short, Anna wasn't feeling her best this morning. In fact, she was pretty confident things couldn't possibly get any worse.

Then she heard the creaking of floorboards somewhere beneath her.

"Wha-?" Anna turned her head around the room, searching for the source of the noise.

"Hi, Anna."

"_Agh!_"

"_Aaagh__!_ Why are we yelling?"

"You scared me!" Anna laughed in relief. It was just Olaf sitting at the foot of her bed. "What are you doing here?"

"I heard people shouting up here yesterday," said Olaf. "What happened?"

"Oh, uh... Nothing you have to worry about."

"Alrighty, then, I won't," he shrugged. "Hey, wanna go do something fun?"

Anna bowed her head. How could she put this? "I can't, Olaf. I'm grounded."

Confusion crossed Olaf's misshapen face. "What? Why?"

"I... did something bad."

"You mean like the time I set that tapestry on fire, and then my bestest friend in the whole world Anders locked my body in the ice chest?"

"...Sure."

Olaf seemed to accept this answer, so he made for the door. "Well, let me know when you're un-grounded. Bye!" But just before pushing past Fritz, he paused and turned back around. "Hey, Anna?"

"Yeah, Olaf?"

"What's a 'bitch?'" Olaf peered up at her with pure, childlike curiosity.

It took Anna a long time to answer.

"You shouldn't say that," she said faintly. "It's a bad word."

"Ohhhhhh. Okay, then!" And with that, Olaf left.

Anna watched him bounce down the hallway. Her eyes were fixed on the door frame, but what she was really seeing was two small children building a snowman in the ballroom and declaring themselves the bestest friends in the whole world.

* * *

Now that it was daylight, Fritz was back at his post in front of Anna's bedroom door, where he would apparently be spending a lot of time from now on. He watched Elsa's magical talking snowman bounce down the hall, muttering "Bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch..." to himself pensively.

Fritz turned around to glance at Anna, who was under her covers, angsting. Then he glanced across at Elsa's empty door frame. He couldn't actually see her at this angle, but Fritz gave it a ninety-nine point-nine-nine percent chance Elsa was also in her room, under the covers, angsting.

_I hope you realize this is all your fault_, said the self-loathing center of Fritz's brain. _The royal sisters had this beautiful, perfect relationship, and then you came into their life and ruined it, just like you ruin everything else you touch. _Actually, Fritz had no clue what had happened yesterday, but he knew the sisters had been getting along just fine _before_ Fritz had failed at guarding Anna.

Elsa must have been devastated. Fritz couldn't stand the thought of her being so much as slightly unhappy, and he'd give anything to run into her room and comfort her in her time of need, but there were a few things holding him back. For one thing, Elsa had explicitly ordered him to stay at Anna's door, and Fritz really, really, _really_ didn't need to fail her again. Other things included a severe lack of self-confidence, charisma, basic social skills, et cetera, et cetera.

_But you know who _does_ have those things and is _never_ far from Elsa?_ Fritz realized with a growing sense of dread. He didn't see him outside her doorway... Oh God! Samson was probably inside Elsa's bedroom right now, wrapping those hairy, gorilla-like arms around her in a sympathetic hug, giving her his ginormous, broad shoulder to cry on... And in the darkness of the bedroom, one thing would lead to another...

Fritz was shaken from his thoughts by Anders approaching him with a plate of food.

"Can the rumors be true?" he said. "Finally, after nineteen long years, Anna is actually getting disciplined for misbehavior?"

"Um, I'm not sure," said Fritz. "What happened exactly?"

"No idea," shrugged Anders, "but given these are teenage girls we're dealing with, I think we can make some educated guesses."

"I thought Elsa was in her twenties," mumbled Fritz.

"The girls undoubtedly got into a tiff because Princess Anna wants to be a free-spirited rebellious wild-child, and Queen Elsa acted overprotective and controlling. Oh, and I'd bet good money there's a _boy_ involved." Anders spat the three-letter word like it was a four-letter word.

"You don't sound that concerned."

"I've been expecting them to quarrel for some time now, actually," said Anders. "The girls were getting along so ridiculously well, it was only a matter of time until the other shoe dropped. Here, give this to the princess, would you?" Anders handed Fritz the breakfast tray and then walked off into Elsa's room.

Fritz listened intently for the cries of a prudish butler. Maybe something to the effect of, "Get your filthy paws off the queen, you deplorable yet extremely good-looking pervert!" But he heard nothing.

Fritz let out a big sigh of relief.

* * *

Though the castle now sported a permanent coating of ice, most of its interior was still room temperature. This made the abrupt change to below freezing particularly jarring as Anders entered Elsa's room. Elsa was seated in the center, hugging her knees. With her back to him, Anders couldn't make out her expression, but he picked up on several clues that Elsa was upset. One was the flurry of snowflakes churning the air. Another was the fact that the instant he took a step towards her, Anders wished he'd worn snowshoes. Elsa was staring at what, from what Anders could make out through the snowstorm, appeared to be a crudely-made snowman with hand prints on its chest.

"You seem troubled," said Anders. Elsa jolted at his voice, then turned to face him. She didn't look quite as regal as usual. Her ice-nightgown was morphed into more of an ice-potato-sack, her hair was down and unbrushed, her make-up was missing, and she was covered in those beads of frozen sweat she always got when she had nightmares.

"Anna and I had an... argument," Elsa said in a trembling voice.

"Yes, I know, I could hear it from the other side of the castle," said Anders. "I just came to check on you. It's not the end of the world, you know."

Elsa hardly seemed to have heard him. "I had no idea Anna was so... _resentful._ She seemed so happy to be reunited with me, I just... took it for granted... she'd forgiven me..." She let out a bitter laugh. "But I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Who _wouldn't_ resent me, right?"

Anders sighed, then forced his old bones to kneel so he could meet her at eye level. "It was nobody's fault, just an unfortunate set of circumstances, but your sister _did_ spend years alone, and she has every right to be resentful." A smile crept across his aged face. "But, Queen Elsa, I have always kept a close eye on your sister, and you know what? I have _never_ caught any hint of resentment. It boggles my mind, actually. By all means, Anna should have grown up depressed and bitter, but she's actually the most persistently happy person I've ever met. Even that debacle with the Southern Isles prince happened because Anna was too anxious to make her life happy again."

He shook his head. "So, you see, she never forgave you for locking her out because, in her eyes, there was nothing to forgive. If anything, Anna blamed _herself... _against all reason."

"That's not how she seemed last night," said Elsa.

"Yes, well..." Anders took a breath. "That's because she takes after her father."

"What do you mean?"

"Your father was a passionate man. When he was happy, he was joyous, but when he was angry... he had a tendency to say things he didn't mean. He was incredibly headstrong, always fooling around with some peasant girl he picked up off the streets – another trait your sister inherited, might I add."

Elsa looked skeptical. "I don't remember him being that way at all. He was calm and levelheaded."

"That's because one day he got the girl pregnant."

"_What__?_"

"And then they had to go and get married, of course. After that, he had too much responsibility to act reckless."

"Oh." Elsa calmed back down. "Is that why he advocated controlling emotions so heavily?"

"I imagine so," nodded Anders. "He didn't mean any harm by it, I'm sure, but his words may have been... misconstrued."

"Okay, but..." Elsa eyed her snowman again. "Even if she doesn't hold the past against me, I still hurt Anna. But Anders, what choice do I have? I can't put her in danger again."

Anders let out another long, tired sigh. "Your Majesty, have I ever told you about my own father?" Elsa shook her head. "I hated him. He was always cutting people down by making smart remarks, and he was _incessantly_ sarcastic." A wry smile played across his wrinkled lips. "I guess what I'm trying to say is... it's powerful... the hold parents have over their children. You don't even realize it's happening until one day you look in the mirror and see them."

He sighed. "Queen Elsa, your parents had nothing but the best intentions for you and your sister, and they _did_ protect you two, but... from where I was standing, it was pretty obvious they were hurting you, too. And, after you finally learned to control your powers, I for one had thought this household was finished being ruled by paranoia and fear."

"Anders, people are going missing!" said Elsa, almost pleadingly. "There have been sightings of a creature! I'm _not_ being paranoid!"

"I'm not saying abandon all precaution." Anders slowly, painstakingly returned to his feet. "In fact, I personally think grounding Princess Anna is a wonderful idea in light of her behavior. I'd simply like to reduce the amount of teenage melodrama in my vicinity, that's all." With that, he vanished down the hall.

* * *

Elsa remained on the floor, staring at her snowwoman a while longer. Then she stood up and seated herself at the dressing table. Her reflection in the ice-mirror did likewise, staring into Elsa's eyes.

"Anders is right, Mary," said Elsa. "We should go to Anna. Maybe she'll have calmed down, and she'll apologize, and... we can be happy agai-"

"_No,_" said the reflection, its stare unwavering. "_You think she 'doesn't really mean' what she says? That she'll apologize? Why would she? What have you done to earn her forgiveness? It's wishful thinking, and it's not true. Only I tell you the truth, Elsa. I will never lie to you. Anna does not want you._"

"Anna... doesn't..."

"Why, hello, Your Majesty!" At that exact moment, a burly, musclebound ape of a man burst into the room, a radiant smile on his face. "Sorry I'm late. I got into the most fascinating conversation with your night guard about our fitness regimens halfway to the staff chambers."

A splitting headache screamed through Elsa's skull. Her ears were ringing, and the next instant... What had she been doing again?

"Oh, Samson... Hello." Elsa stood out of her dresser chair, disoriented, and was suddenly highly self-conscious of her unkempt appearance. Samson looked over her mess of hair and plain clothing like a child who's just learned Santa Claus is actually a guy in a costume with a fake beard.

"I'll give you time to get changed," he said, his dashing grin wavering for only a split-second. "Better hurry. That weasel-guy is waiting for you to meet with him, and he's getting pretty impatient."

After that, Elsa had to hurry out the door. She paused a moment outside Anna's bedroom... and then passed it over.

* * *

The sunrise fell on a stable near a flat, in which slept a reindeer and a human who smelled close enough to pass himself off as one. Kristoff opened his eyes and groaned. Somehow, instead of his bed, he'd ended up sleeping in Sven's stable, mostly because Sven had been very comfortable and refused to budge during the night.

The events of the previous day came flooding back into Kristoff's head.

_Good going, genius,_ said Sven. _You ended it. _

"Shut up, Sven," grumbled Kristoff.

_You had this rare, once-in-a-lifetime chance to date this dream girl princess who you actually do love, by the way, and you blew it because her sister barged in and scared your pants off. _

"_Shut_ _up_, Sven!"

That was the problem with Sven's speech being a figment of Kristoff's imagination – He couldn't make him shut up, even when the real Sven was sound asleep and Kristoff refused to do the goofy voice.

"I just didn't want to get in the sisters' way." It sure was a good thing there weren't any other people in earshot, or else Kristoff might be accused of sounding _crazy_ or something. "Anna needs to support Elsa, and if Elsa's going to get so upset at-"

_That's a load of baloney, and you know it, _scoffed Sven. _If you really needed to give Elsa her space, you could've just stayed away from Anna until this blew over, but you didn't. You said the words, "I'm breaking up with you." As in, you're no longer interested in having a relationship with her at all._

_And maybe that's not what you meant, but this is a _girl_ we're dealing with here. How do you _think_ she's gonna interpret that, huh? But don't worry, I'm sure the next cute and quirky girl who's interested in you will be your _real_ true love- Oh, wait, you're a loser who has no friends except a pack animal because you were raised by non-humans! The fact that you even have _one_ girl willing to tolerate you is-_

"Will you put a sock in it?" Kristoff groaned, and this time the words weren't even directed at his reindeer. Somewhere along the way, the voice berating him had stopped representing Sven. "I promised Anna I was mostly emotionally stable..."

* * *

As it turned out, standing outside Anna's door for hours upon hours wasn't fun. Sure, Fritz could always amuse himself with his daydreams, but once he'd gotten to the incredibly detailed account of his tenth year married to Elsa, they'd kind of lost their luster.

Something about the way Anna remained on her bed all this time, totally silent, unnerved Fritz. Even when she'd been bored out of her skull before, Princess Anna had still had this fundamental... _bubbliness_ to her, and now it was like all the bubbles had popped and there was nothing left but empty air.

To be honest, Fritz wasn't sure he liked Anna too much. Something about her boundless enthusiasm intimidated him. But Elsa seemed to value her above all else, and Elsa was the most perfect being on the face of the earth, so there had to be some aspect of Anna that Fritz wasn't appreciating properly. And besides, _Anna_ being happy was the first step towards _Elsa_ being happy.

"Err, Your Highness?" spoke up Fritz. "Do you want to, uh, talk about what happened?"

"No," Anna said mechanically.

Fritz should have replied with something like, "Okay, I understand," but instead he let the awkwardness hang in the air.

But after a little while, Anna surprised Fritz by breaking the silence herself. "Hey, Fritz, if you see Elsa again... can you tell her I'm sorry for... for everything?"

Fritz simply nodded.

Nothing much else was said until another half hour had passed, at which point Anna stuck her head out the doorway. "Hey, uh, I need to use the little princess' room." The first few times Anna had taken a leak, Fritz had been cautious and marched her back and forth himself, but when no escape attempts had been made, he'd let his guard drop.

The fact that Anna didn't try and run for it almost bothered Fritz more than the fact that she was grounded. She was like a wild stallion that'd been broken in.

Fritz sat outside the now-empty bedroom, waiting for Anna to return. Oh well, maybe guarding a grounded princess was boring, but if there was one upside, it was that at least Fritz didn't have to put up with-

"Hello, my tiny friend!" called out Fritz's favorite person ever, running up to slap Fritz's back.

"S-Samson, what are you doing here?" squeaked Fritz.

"The queen's turned in early for the night, so I came to check on you," he said. "The night guard should be coming soon, and then we can walk down to the staff chambers together."

"Hurray," said Fritz.

"You know what?" Samson brought his hands to his hips. "Maybe it's just my imagination, but I think the queen's been in low spirits today."

"Gee, how observant of you."

"But I know what will cheer her up!" beamed the talking pile of muscle and protein. "It's time I finally made my move. This time tomorrow, the queen and I will be going on a hot date, I guarantee it!" He gave a deep, hearty laugh.

"Uh, are you sure?" said Fritz. "You wouldn't want to rush things..."

"Oh, yes, I've kept a close eye on this one, and I'm certain she's the girl for me!" As he spoke, Samson absently walked closer to the foot of Anna's bed. "Queen Elsa sure is something. She's a girl I could really fall in love with, y'know?"

"...Yeah, I know."

After that, the night guard finally came to relieve Fritz of his shift. He eagerly returned to his room and bolted inside to hide from organized society for the rest of the night.

Fritz felt... weird. The thoughts he was thinking about Samson were... frankly, unpleasant ones. Fritz knew it was wrong, but he really, sincerely wanted _bad_ _things_ to happen to Samson. He wanted Samson to be _unhappy._ He even – and this was the worst thought of all – He even wanted Samson to _go away forever_.

The wicked thoughts occupied Fritz all the while he brushed his teeth, changed into his long underwear, and crawled into bed. It wasn't until he caught sight of the miniature portrait of his mother resting on his bedside table that he was finally shaken out of it.

What was he thinking? Samson wasn't a bad person. He was just... better than Fritz. Fritz had to admit, he'd kill to be in Samson's insanely large shoes. Fritz would even settle for only, say, being a little bit handsome. And he didn't necessarily _have_ to marry Elsa, just so long as he got some, y'know, acknowledgment from her. Even a hug... One little hug from Elsa, and he could die happy...

Fritz sighed and blew out the lantern, enveloping his bedroom in darkness. He didn't ask for much. Any token sign the universe didn't entirely loathe him would be vindication enough. The problem was, the universe never seemed to give an inch.

After a while, Fritz's eyelids grew heavy, and he nodded off amongst thoughts of Elsa, how much he loved her, and how maybe he'd have had the tiniest chance with her if it wasn't for Samson...

* * *

...Fritz opened his eyes, rubbed out the sleep, and sat up in bed to find his bedroom door wide open and the most beautiful person on earth standing in the doorway.

"E-Elsa?" he yawned.

Elsa immediately ran to give him a tight hug. At first, Fritz would've thought this was another dream, except his dreams were never this vivid. Her hair hadn't smelled this nice in his mind, and he'd never pictured her skin this soft...

_What's going on?_ Fritz thought, followed shortly by, _Are you complaining?_

It was impossible... Fritz's wildest fantasies had finally come true! But... there was one problem. Whenever he'd pictured Elsa hugging him in his dreams, Fritz's hadn't imagined she'd be bawling hysterically.

"Elsa...?" he asked groggily. "What's wrong?"

"_Samson is dead!_"


	26. The Case of the Hungry Wight

Elsa remained kneeled over the bed, hugging Fritz and sobbing for a long while. Fritz was so pale, he could pass as dead himself if it wasn't for his entire body trembling with sheer primordial terror. Even physical contact with his dream girl wasn't enough to shake off the horror welling up in Fritz's stomach, and Elsa herself hardly seemed better off. If anything, she was quaking with even more fear than he was, and her breathing was once again on the brink of hyperventilation.

"Wuh-Wuh-What happened?" Fritz stammered out.

Elsa took a hearty number of breaths before answering. "My bodyguard... didn't show up on time... I went to his room... to check on him... _There was so much blood._"

_A__aaaaaaaaagh! s_aid Fritz's brain. _No not blood why does there have to be bloooooooood?_

There wasn't an ounce of moisture in Fritz's throat. "A-And then you came into _my_ room?"

"I was... making sure you were okay..." Elsa managed to say between gasps.

"Do you think it was the... m-muh-mo... mon..." It took Fritz a couple more tries to say, "monster?"

Elsa's eyes widened. "Anna," she whispered. Then she sped out the door and down the hall, leaving Fritz alone.

He remained in his bed, staring at the ceiling. On the pros side, Samson was no longer a competitor for Elsa's affection, and apparently, when in the face of mortal peril, Elsa actually cared about Fritz – at least enough to make sure he wasn't dead, too. On the cons side, Samson had just been violently murdered, and now there was a wight-monster-thingy running around the castle despite the current maximum security lockdown. And... who's to say it would stop at _one_ bodyguard?

Fritz pulled the covers over his head.

* * *

Elsa sprinted up the stairs as quickly as her heels would allow. She forced herself to focus on breathing, to shut out the image of overturned furniture and shattered glass from a window beneath a bloodstained floor. Once she reached the bedchambers hallway, Elsa had to fight back the urge to run into her room and throw herself before the mirror.

Wait, what? Why would she want to do that?

But she didn't have time to dwell on it. Elsa charged straight into Anna's bedroom, through the door that was, on Anna's insistence, kept open and unlocked at all times. The first thing in her line of sight was a surprised red-haired girl sitting up in bed.

"Anna! Thank God!" She practically tackled Anna with a hug.

"Elsa? What's going on?" asked a shocked Anna. "Are you okay?"

"It's here..." No matter how rapidly she inhaled, Elsa couldn't seem to get enough air. "The wight's here... in the castle..."

"_What__?_" Anna gave a start. "Did you see it?"

Elsa shook her head. "My bodyguard... was missing... blood in his bedroom... had to be the wight..."

"Alright, alright, just... calm down." Anna returned Elsa's tight grip. "Elsa, your breathing sounds _terrible_. You need a doctor."

"No, no... I always get... like this... when I'm... stressed..." Elsa ended the hug and spun to face the doorway. A wave of her arm caused a barricade of ice to sprout over it.

"Uh, what are you doing?" asked Anna.

Elsa glanced at the nearby window, frowned, and then covered it in ice, too. Her work finished, she dropped to the floor, hugging her knees.

"Hiding," she admitted.

"_Elsa._" Anna sighed, then moved to the floor beside her. "Have you warned the staff there's a monster loose in the castle?"

Elsa failed to meet her eyes. "I told... Fritz..."

"Oh, I bet _he'll_ be a _real_ help," said Anna flatly. "Look, I know you're scared, but you've got to deal with this." As she spoke, she straightened some loose strands of Elsa's hair. "Look, whether the killer's really a 'wight' or not, you've kicked the butts of, like, a bajillion rebels _and_ a guy with an ice-eating sword. You can take it!"

"I... can't go out there," said Elsa. "I can't let the staff see me like... _this_." She took some more irregular breaths, as if to demonstrate.

Here came another hug. "Okay, Elsa... take a minute to get a hold of yourself, then."

Elsa nodded feebly. There was a brief silence in the bedroom as the sisters sat motionless, save for Elsa's heaving chest.

"Well, so long as we're waiting, I guess now's as good a time as any..." Anna took a deep breath of her own. "I'm really, _really_ sorry for... for clocking the Duke and screwing up your trade-thing, for running away from the castle, for rushing into things with Kristoff just because I was upset, for yelling at you... Elsa, I promise I didn't mean a _word_ of it."

Elsa's breathing finally slowed to normal. "I'm sorry, too," she said. "You were right, Anna. I should have spoken to you. I could have reached out to you years ago, but... I was too scared." Then she added in a near-whisper, "Can you forgive me?"

Anna grabbed her shoulders. "Of course I forgive you. I was just mad before – I never _really_ held it against you. Honestly, when we were first separated, I was a stupid little kid, and I- I actually thought it was _my_ fault. I thought Mom and Dad took you away because I did something wrong."

"Nothing has _ever_ been your fault," said Elsa quietly.

"It was stupid, I know, but it's what I thought up until... Wow, I guess I thought that all the way until your coronation." Anna seemed to have surprised herself. "I mean, now that my memories are fixed, I remember what really happened before my head froze and stuff, but I still remember _not_ remembering. Huh, that's kinda weird..." For a second, Anna was lost in introspection.

"I'm such an idiot," Elsa suddenly said. "After everything I did, breaking all my promises to you, it was all for nothing. The wight got inside anyways."

"You're _not_ an idiot," said Anna firmly. "You don't want your loved ones to die. Nobody does. That's not being an idiot – That's being human. But Elsa..." She closed her eyes. "...you can't protect everyone from everything. I mean, we have no clue what crazy magical powers this wight has. Maybe it could kill us all by blinking!"

Elsa tensed. "No, Anna, I won't let it hurt you-"

"And how do we know it ends after the wight is caught?" continued Anna. "How do we know there won't just be _another_ monster?"

Elsa's pulse was starting to pound again.

"Maybe the Southern Isles will declare war on us?" Anna ranted, throwing her hands in the air. "Maybe there'll be another rebellion? Maybe I'll get struck by lightning the next time I step outside?"

"But I can't just do nothing if-"

"All I'm trying to say," concluded Anna, "is sometimes bad things happen, and there's nothing you can do about it."

"_I_ _tried!_"

Anna flinched. She hadn't expected Elsa's reaction to be so... loud.

"_I tried to stop them__!_" In an instant, Elsa's voice was shaking, and her breathing was back to frenzied. "I had a bad feeling about it. I _begged_ them not to go. But... they... _wouldn't_... _listen_..."

"Elsa..."

"It... can't... happen again... I won't _let_ it..."

The conversation was put on hold to make time for crying and hugging and all the other sisterly interactions that should have happened three years ago.

After a while, things grew reasonably quiet again. "I am _so_ sorry, Elsa," said Anna. "After everything we've been through, of course you were afraid of losing me. And I didn't understand... I was selfish... All I cared about was the fact that _I_ was locked up."

"It's okay, Anna," Elsa said quietly.

"Well, I won't be like that again." Anna took Elsa's hands in her own. "I promise I'll stay in my room and be grounded, and I'll never do anything stupid to put myself in danger ever again, and, heck, I'll be a perfect little princess if _that's_ what you want... on one condition. You _have_ to apologize to Kristoff. He didn't deserve what you said to him." She gave a wry smile. "And, y'know, I'd kind of like to be dating him again."

Elsa shut her eyes and took a breath. "Anna, you _dating_ him wasn't exactly the part I took issue with..."

At this, Anna stiffened. "Yeah, well, we're both grown-ups, so _that's_ not really any of your business."

"I know, I know, but... you're my little sister. I worry about you." Elsa hung her head. "You'll have plenty of time for..." A tinge of red entered her cheeks. "...for 'that' once you're married."

"So when can Kristoff marry me?" Anna immediately asked.

"How about once you're through menopause?"

"_Elsa._"

"I'm kidding." Elsa gave a feeble smile. "I'm sure you've learned your lesson about rushing into marriage. We already missed out on a good chunk of our childhood. Don't throw the rest of yours away."

"I won't." A second later, Anna blurted out, "But making out's still okay, right?"

Elsa cocked an eyebrow. "Are you two at least being sanitary?"

"What?"

"I've seen him eat after his reindeer."

Anna gave a start. "Yeah, but he- he washed his mouth after that. Probably..." She stared off into space, mortified.

Then, after a second, she said, "Anyways, are you ready to face this wight-thingy?" Elsa nodded. "Good. I guess I'll stay here-"

"_No_." Elsa impulsively grabbed her arm. "I'm not leaving you alone in your bedroom again. From now on, I want you right next to me." She rose to her feet. "I will protect you from the wight _personally_."

"Alright!" grinned Anna, rising to her own feet. "That's what I'm talking about! Why didn't we just do that in the first place?"

* * *

Back in the staff quarters, there was a Fritz-shaped lump in the bed's covers, shaking so hard you'd think it was about to explode. Every tiny creak sent Fritz into a fit of cowering, wincing, and waiting for the inevitable end of his life.

The door swinging open was nearly gave him a heart attack, and then he almost died again from the whiplash of discovering that the person standing in the doorway was not, in fact, a horrific monstrosity come to rip him to pieces, but the most gorgeous woman on the planet and her reasonably hot sister.

"I'm back, Fritz," said Elsa. "Sorry I was gone so long. I shouldn't have left you here alone, but I had to check on Anna. I hope you understand."

"Uh, yeah, it's fine. I wasn't scared or anything." Fritz sprang out of bed, trying to look as dignified as the situation would allow. "I was just... uh..." He had to abandon that sentence halfway through when he realized there was no possible way to finish it.

"The rest of the guards are on high alert," said Elsa. "But since you're her bodyguard, you'd better stay with Anna and me."

"Right. Good idea." Fritz seized the chance to hide behind Elsa.

"What about Kristoff and Olaf?" asked Anna.

"Kristoff's in town, and Olaf can't be hurt anyways," said Elsa. "I guess the wight could still kidnap him, but I don't see why he'd bother."

"So we're sure the wight's in the castle, then?" Fritz's teeth were chattering. "You don't think maybe Samson was killed by, like, a regular, non-monstrous person? Or maybe he just cut himself _really_ _badly_ shaving?"

"I'm not taking any chances." Elsa cautiously exited Fritz's room, peered around the corner both ways, and then motioned for Anna and Fritz to follow her.

It took another minute for the realization to sink in. Elsa had just... come back to check on Fritz. And, well, there was absolutely no way she sincerely thought he could offer Anna even the slightest protection from the wight, so... that meant she'd really asked Fritz to come with them because she wanted to make sure he was safe. And, earlier, when she'd first entered Samson's room and seen the blood, who had she run to? Fritz first, Anna _second._ Now, that could be because of the proximity of Fritz's bedroom to Samson's... or it could be indisputable proof that Elsa was secretly madly in love with Fritz!

_Wow, Samson's death is paying off already,_ thought a very evil part of Fritz's brain.

_Shut up!_ he told it. But Fritz couldn't deny it was a good point...

Oh God. _Fritz_ had done this. He'd wished upon a star for unspeakable things to happen to Samson, and now Samson was gone. Kicked the bucket. Two weeks past expiration date. Off to the big weight lifting gym in the sky.

Wait a minute. What if... What is _Fritz_ was the wight? He was transforming at night into a horrific beast that murdered Samson in a fit of jealous rage! That's how the wight was sneaking past the guards so easily! It all made sense. _He was a moooooooooooooooonsteeeeeeeer!_

* * *

Elsa stared at the door to Samson's bedroom and forced herself to breath in steady, regular intervals. Queens don't show fear. Besides, as terrified as Elsa might feel, the people counting on her were far more so. Anna may have hidden behind a confident facade, but Fritz at least was quite visibly out of his mind with fright.

"I'm going back in," Elsa told them. "I never saw the..." She faltered only for a second. "..._body_. I need to make sure he's really dead." Her hand slowly, carefully went for the doorknob. The door opened with a low _creeeeeeaaaak_... Elsa peered inside.

Horse. An entire horse. Right in her face. Elsa nearly tumbled backwards in shock.

"_What-?_"

"Oh, I wouldn't come in here if I was you," said a voice from behind it. "It's a bit too gruesome for a lady's eyes, Your Queeniness."

Out stepped a familiar-looking man in dark clothing.

"Not you again!" groaned Anna.

"Who let _you_ in here?" demanded Elsa.

"Good to see you too," said Detective Brand, lighting his pipe.

"You can't smoke in the castle," said Elsa.

"Uh huh. And I'm accompanied, as always, by my crimefighting ass- _Huh_." The instant Brand put the pipe to his mouth, the flame went out. He shrugged and lit it again with similar results.

Elsa gave him a stern glare. "Animals aren't allowed, either."

"_Crimefighting associate_," Brand said sternly. "I came as soon as I heard. Hope you don't mind, but I helped myself to a little examination of the crime scene. This one fits all the signs of the other attacks, except that the killer usually goes after pretty girls... I dunno, maybe pretty guys do it for him, too. I don't pretend to understand the criminal mind."

"Anything else?" asked Elsa.

"Yeah, there's not a body in there," said Brand. "That fits his MO, though. Usually, we find caves full of bones in the killer's wake. He probably takes his victims there and then-" He caught himself and quickly said, "-does stuff not fit to discuss with a lady. And, I mean, it's pretty obvious he dragged the poor guy out of the castle. The window's broken and there's a really clear trail of blood leading to the woods and everything. Oh, and you might wanna fire your guards, seeing as the killer apparently managed to slip past them hauling an unconscious, muscular man."

"A trail of blood?" repeated Elsa. "Interesting... Well, detective, you've actually been very helpful. Thank you."

"It's what I do," grinned Brand. "Just another day in the life of the greatest, most reputable private eye in all of-"

"You!" Suddenly, Anders was running towards them down the hallway, flailing his arms in a rage. "We said you can't come in without license! Get out, you low-life!"

"I've, uh, gotta skedaddle. Duty calls. Olympus, come." Detective Brand gave the royal sisters a tip of his hat, then bolted. The horse gave them an apologetic look before following suit, shaking its head in embarrassment.

Elsa, Anna, and Fritz remained in the hall a while longer, all with identical expressions of disbelief.

"_Someone's_ a few ice cubes short of a palace," muttered Anna.

"That was excellent news, actually." Elsa let out a big sigh of relief. "It sounds like the wight's left the castle... for now, at least."

"But what are we gonna do about it?" spoke up Fritz. "You've got this place on full-out lockdown and it still slipped past."

"Maybe we can send some guards to follow the blood trail," said Anna. "What do you think, Elsa?"

"Right now... I think you need to go back to your room."

Anna's face fell. "What happened to you protecting me personally?"

"If the wight's in the forest, it probably can't return to the castle _too_ quickly," said Elsa. "You'll be alright with Fritz for a little while. There's something I need to do..."

"Can I at least go somewhere besides my room?" groaned Anna. "It's soboring in there!"

"You're grounded," said Elsa, folding her arms. "You're not supposed to be having fun."

"I'm _still_ grounded?" Anna's jaw dropped. "But we had a heartfelt apology and stuff!"

"Yes, but I didn't only ground you to protect you from the wight," Elsa said patiently. "I also did it because of your misbehavior. I'm glad you apologized, but that doesn't absolve you completely."

"_But Ellllllsaaaaaa!_" Anna gave her sweetest puppy dog eyes.

A smile flickered across Elsa's face. "Besides, I'm going to speak to Kristoff soon, and I seem to recall somebody promising to be a 'perfect little princess.'"

"I never said that!" Anna said with mock indignation. "You're twisting my words!"

Nevertheless, Anna ended up back in her room with Fritz at the door. But this time, Elsa left Anna's bedroom with a big smile on her face. Considering it had started with discovering a room full of blood, today was a surprisingly nice day. Elsa hadn't been expecting to make peace with Anna so quickly. Like Elsa had thought before, the one good thing about tragedies was they made you appreciate what you had.

On the other hand, while Elsa hadn't thought too highly off him, but Samson's loss sent a shiver down her spine. _She_ had wanted to hire a bodyguard, so, in a way... it was _her_ fault.

Out of nowhere, Elsa's splitting headache returned. Almost on impulse, she found herself walking to her own bedroom and seating herself at the dresser.

"_Oh, Elsa, look what you've done now_." Mary sounded disappointed, and the thought of it twisted Elsa's stomach into a knot. "_How many is that now, Elsa? How many people's blood on your hands?_"

"I'm sorry..." Like a house of cards tipping over, Elsa was breathing wrong again. "I was only trying to protect Anna."

"_And how's that been working out for you, exactly? What was stopping the wight from choosing Anna and not some guard you don't care about?_"

Elsa jerked her head, forcing herself away from her reflection's gaze. "I know, but... it's gone for now. We have time to act. We can save her."

"_And I, once again, must question why you bother_," said the mirror. "_Anna is no different from anyone else. They__'__ll all turn on you_."

"No..." Elsa seemed to be grasping for words, doing her best to think rationally despite the pain in her skull. "You were... wrong... about her. She _did_ apologize. She _did _forgive me-"

"_I__ will never lie to you_." For an instant, Elsa's reflection changed... but she only caught it out of the corner of her eye. When Elsa returned her gaze to her reflection, it seemed the same as always. Mary's eyes locked with Elsa's again. "_You think Anna is being sincere, you idiot? She knows if she makes up with you, you'll reunite her with her boyfriend. You can't trust _either_ of them._"

"I... I don't want to talk about this." Elsa was having trouble forming sentences. When she stared at Mary's eyes, she felt like a child. "I came... to you to... ask for help about... the wight. It's in the forest. There's a trail of blood. What do I do?"

Mary let out a chuckle. "_What do you __think__ you do? I've seen this wight – __H__e's __no __threat to you. He's barely even latched onto the world of the living._" She leaned in closer, forcing Elsa to mimic her posture.

"_You are the Snow Queen. It's time you stopped holding back._"


	27. He Loves Her

_Queen Elsa sure is something. She's a girl I could really fall in love with, y'know?_

The words echoed through the wight's ears, boiling his blood. He dragged the man by the arm through dirt, past trees, over rocks... He did his best to hurry, but it was slow-going. The wight had been stupid. He was accustomed to young girls or children – The large man had put up far too much of a fight. Bony, black fingers covered the wight's side in a futile attempt to stifle the flow of crimson liquid.

_You're leaving a trail. People will follow. They'll find you. With dogs, with swords, with torches..._

The wight groaned and allowed the tiniest amount of magic to escape his fingertips, covering his wound. He wasn't even hungry yet, but he'd had no choice. This man could not be allowed near Elsa. The wight looked back at his victim, who was breathing softly.

_Kill him, _said one of the voices._ He must never hurt her._

_No, _said another. _We must question him-_

_Make him scream._

_Why does he love her?_

_He must suffer. All of them must suffer._

_Only we love her. Only __we__ love her!_

The wight shut his eyes tightly, forcing the voices out. He had no time for hesitation. He had to get home. It had followed him to the castle. He would never be safe as long as It was chasing him.

The wight and his unconscious victim reached a deep river. Almost absently, the wight dropped his baggage and pressed his fingers to the base of one of the trees growing along the river's edge. The bark quickly grew cold and black until the entire tree tipped over, bridging the gap to the other side.

Not much longer now. While it saddened the wight that he couldn't keep watching over the Snow Queen and his worst enemy, he also knew that he was no longer needed. Elsa was already on the right track, after all, and all the wight's magic had really done was speed up the inevitable.

* * *

A big, fat, lazy reindeer lay slumped across the sofa in Kristoff's flat, watching as he scurried about rounding up equipment.

"Looks like another day out on the lake, harvesting ice," Kristoff said as he slipped his right boot onto his left foot. "Another day putting up with my fellow harvester jerks, which will be my only meaningful interaction with other human beings today. And then we'll head home and eat carrots and sleep." He caught himself, let out a sigh, and switched boots. "And tomorrow, we'll do the exact same thing. Whoopee..."

"At least you still have your optimism," said the voice of Sven.

"Thanks, buddy, I don't know how I'd manage without your sarcasm."

Kristoff stood up and opened the front door the find the Snow Queen standing on his welcome mat. "_Agh__!_ _She's not here this time, I swear_\- I mean, uh..." He cleared his throat. "Hello, Your Majesty. How can I help you?"

_Smooth_, said Sven.

_You hush_.

Elsa regarded him sternly. "Last night, the wight broke into my castle and killed a guard." Her eyes narrowed. "I need your help."

* * *

"So let me get this straight."

The queen and the ice-harvester were traveling across the castle bridge upon a beautifully groomed palace horse and a less beautifully groomed reindeer. The animals had begun outside the broken window in Samson's bedroom and were currently following the periodic droplets of blood leading out of the castle island and into the nearby forest.

"You need me to guide you through the wilderness," repeated Kristoff, "so that you can find this wight-thingy and take it down?"

Elsa nodded, her eyes fixed dead ahead from the back of her mount.

"Why go it alone?" asked Kristoff. "I mean, I know you beat those rebels single-handed, but it couldn't hurt to send in, like, a squad of guards, could it?"

Elsa took a moment to reply. "I already lost one guard to this monster. Nobody else has to die for me."

"Okay, but the last bad guy you fought had an _ice-eating sword_," said Kristoff. "It can't hurt to be careful."

This comment didn't even _get_ a reply. Kristoff shook his head. So suicidal recklessness ran in the family, then?

After that, they continued through the forest in silence. The first minute of silence, Kristoff felt kind of awkward. The fifth minute, he thought maybe he ought to say something to break the tension. The thirtieth minute, he was dangerously close to blurting out something inane about the weather.

"We... haven't really met each other, except through Anna." But it was Elsa who made light conversation. "I know you were... raised by rock trolls."

Oh no, here it came...

"That must have been interesting."

"Uh, yeah, it was pretty... different," said Kristoff. "Trolls live in these... burrows in the ground. It's, uh, a little dirty, but their skin is made of rock, so I guess they don't care..."

_You know, you're not exactly selling yourself as grade-A sister-dating material,_ said Sven.

"And they mostly eat fish. They don't cook them or anything. Just... whole fish. Right in their mouths. Plus, y'know, berries and whatever else they can find in the wilderness. They, err, don't believe in farming. Apparently, that's a human-only thing. Not much for technology, either."

Elsa's only acknowledgment was a noncommittal grunt.

_Wow, you kept on talking, _marveled Sven. _Maybe you're not embarrassing yourself enough... Ooh, ooh, tell her about the time Bulda let you use a fire crystal! Didn't you end up dropping it down your pants?_

"So, err, what about you?" Kristoff hastily changed the subject. "You were raised as royalty in a castle and stuff, right? That must have been pretty fun."

Elsa stared at her horse's mane. "Not really."

"Oh. Right."

The silence returned.

_I know what you can talk about! _said Sven. _'Hey, Queen Elsa, remember that time I slept with your s-'_

_Shut up shut up shut up shut up!_ This wasn't the first time Kristoff had screamed at a reindeer with his mind, and it wouldn't be the last.

Several long minutes passed before anything more was said.

"Uh oh. Looks like we've got a problem."

The animals halted before a raging river full of sharp rocks just itching to impale someone. The steady droplets of blood stopped at the base of a fallen tree bridging both sides of the creek.

"That wouldn't be safe to cross on horseback even if the tree _wasn't_ totally rotted on this end," said Kristoff, examining its blackened roots.

Sven gave him a look.

"Or reindeerback," added Kristoff. He turned his noble steed around. "We'll have to go the long way. I don't think there's any way to-"

He glanced back at the river and found an elaborate ice bridge complete with hand rails. Elsa sat at the other end, giving Kristoff an impatient look from the back of her horse.

"Man, _I_ want ice powers," he said as Sven galloped across.

"No you don't," Elsa said quietly.

Kristoff paled. "No, no, I just meant... Forget it. Oh, but, y'know what?" He jerked his head around, examining the tiny clearing they now occupied. "We've _still_ got a problem. The trail ends here." He was right – There was no longer even a hint of blood in the grass. "I bet our monster wised up and dumped the guard in the river. You want to turn back?"

Elsa shook her head. "I thought this might happen. I have an idea." She dismounted her horse and walked to the clearing's center. "Stand back."

Kristoff watched, confused, as Elsa threw out her arms and sent a blanket of snow over the ground. His eyes widened as the snow started pooling together, forming countless fist-sized lumps, each complete with their own miniature personal flurries.

Then the shapes started preening themselves, and Kristoff realized what they were.

"Find the wight!" ordered Elsa. A flood of icy feathers shot above the trees and out of sight.

Kristoff stared, gaping. "Are... Are those snowmen? Or, uh, snowbirds?" Elsa nodded. "But... I thought you said after Marshmallow, you didn't want to make life again? Because it looks like you just made a couple dozen new lives."

"They're not really _people_," said Elsa.

"How do you know?" Kristoff put an arm around his reindeer. "Animals have feelings, too."

"Because... _I_ made them, and I don't _want_ them to be people." A faraway look overtook Elsa's eyes. Kristoff had seen those eyes before on Grand Pabbie, who'd always said explaining magic to the uninitiated is like explaining color to the blind. "They're more like... messengers."

"Alright, alright, but it still seems weird." Kristoff dismounted Sven to stand beside her. "What made you change your mind about using your snowman-powers?"

The look had gone, and now Elsa's eyes seemed more determined. "I'm the Snow Queen. It's time I stopped holding back."

Kristoff and Sven traded glances. "What, are they going to peck the wight to death?"

"They're going to find it, then lead us to it," said Elsa.

Kristoff shrugged. "Sounds like a plan. So I guess we just make ourselves comfortable in the meantime?" Sven didn't need to be told twice before plopping down on the dirt, and Kristoff followed suit. Fun fact about reindeer: They double as giant, stinky pillows.

Elsa hesitated a moment, then conjured up a snow-armchair and seated herself daintily. It was all Kristoff could do not to snicker – When you're a rugged mountain man, seeing a lavish piece of furniture in the middle of the wilderness is a special kind of bizarre.

So here they were, a boy raised by trolls, his pet reindeer, a girl with godlike powers over ice and snow, and one very nonchalant horse, all sitting in the middle of the woods, waiting for snowbirds to return and show them the way to an ice-zombie, which Elsa would then engage in combat with her magical powers. If there was one thing being raised by trolls had taught Kristoff, it was when weirdness shows up on the doorstep of your life, it's best to roll with it.

* * *

Honestly, it wasn't confronting the wight that unnerved Elsa so much as the waiting. She fidgeted in her snow-chair, doing her best not to think about the large quantity of blood they'd passed.

A snort from Sven turned Elsa's attention to the boy lying on the ground. She had yet to outright apologize – despite that being the reason she'd asked him to come along in the first place. Kristoff seemed innocent enough, but Elsa couldn't shake the question... If she'd met him beforehand, wouldn't Hans have seemed innocent, too?

"How did you come across my sister, again?" Elsa suddenly spoke.

Kristoff sat up, looking distinctly uncomfortable. Neither of them were pretending he wasn't being scrutinized. "When I met her, she was running around Oaken's trading post, asking if anyone had seen a girl with magic ice powers."

"That's twice now you've crossed paths with us," said Elsa. "First, you followed my parents into the valley, and then you just _happened_ to run into my sister during the eternal winter?"

"She was shopping for winter clothes, I was shopping for carrots," shrugged Kristoff. "We were the only two people crazy enough to be out in the weather." He let out a sigh. "Look, I'm not involved in some kind of crazy conspiracy with the trolls to get to your throne, if that's what you're thinking."

Elsa bowed her head. "I never _really_ thought that," she admitted. "It's just that, sometimes, trusting people can be... hard."

"Hey, I don't blame you," said Kristoff. "After Hans, I'd run psychiatric tests on every boy Anna ever _looked_ at if I was you. And, to be fair, the trolls _were _a little _too_ exited to see me get with Anna, but I think that has more to do with my people skills... or lack thereof..."

"Why did you?" asked Elsa.

"What?"

"Why did you get with Anna?"

"Oh. Well, it's a little hard to describe..." Kristoff looked to his reindeer, as if it could offer assistance. "I guess there are a lot of reasons. When I first met her, I thoughts she was nuts, and I couldn't let her get killed running into a snowstorm. And, y'know, at first I wrote her off as some ditzy rich girl who'd been pampered so much she didn't know how take care of herself, but... then, after she got her heart frozen, I realized how selfless she was being, and when it came time to bring her back to her fiance, it..." He took a breath. "...didn't feel right.

"We're not so different," he continued, scratching Sven behind the ears. "I know what it's like to lose your parents and feel cut off from the world, but... I let myself get bitter and shut everyone out. Anna held onto this optimism. She never stopped trying to fix things. Being around her makes me _better_. So... that's why."

Elsa pondered this. If _she_ had been asked, "Why Anna?" ...isn't that what Elsa would've said?

"You love her," said Elsa. It wasn't a question.

"Yep," nodded Kristoff. "In fact, I loved her so much, I broke up with her, and I'm not even kidding. Uh, what I'm saying, Your Majesty-"

"Elsa."

He looked disarmed, then smiled. "What I'm saying, Elsa, is I could tell I was getting in the way, and... what you said the other day was pretty much right. You don't know me, so why should you trust me, right? It's okay, I get it. And, y'know, the trolls call themselves 'love experts' because they think love is literally the most important force in the universe since it fuels all the strongest magic, and... something they like to say is, true love always trumps romantic love, so if you really love your partner, and it's better for them if you end things, you end things."

"I see." Elsa nodded slowly. "So... the trolls would say it's always best to act for the sake of love?"

"Well, yeah, I guess so."

Elsa glanced up at the sky. It was a clear, summer sunset, bathing everything red and purple. "What about Adrian?" Her voice was a near-whisper.

Kristoff looked blank. "What about him? Dude had issues. Didn't he start that whole rebellion just because he hated magic or something? Are you talking about his wife? I _guess_ he loved her, but if he drowned himself, he must not have wanted to be with her too badly." A thought seemed to occur to him. "Did you ever find his wife, by the way? How was she?"

Elsa moved her gaze back to the dirt. She opened her mouth. Her lips were working, and her tongue was working, but her words were failing her. "She..."

"Queen Elsa."

Both humans and animals jerked at the sudden voice behind them. They turned to find a snowbird perched on a fallen log.

When she'd made them, Elsa had vaguely pictured the birds as looking like a cross between a dove and a white raven, and, up close, that was precisely what they looked like.

"We found the wight." The snowbird had the voice of an adult male, not unlike Kai's. "It's dragged your guard to a cave full of bones, just like the detective said. Also, Samson is alive. Follow me."

Elsa and Kristoff traded shocked expressions.

"Well, what do you know, it worked!" said Kristoff, hopping onto Sven. "And the birds can talk. I thought you said they weren't people?"

"They're _not_," Elsa said as she mounted her horse. "They only talk when they need to."

"Whatever you say."

Elsa bowed her head, holding her reins limply. "Kristoff, you don't have to come. It's going to be dangerous."

"What, are you kidding?" smirked Kristoff. "What if it's got another ice-eating sword? You're gonna need some muscle. Besides, I want this thing gone just as much as you do. It would be a real waste if it killed Anna after I went through all the trouble of explaining why I love her so much."

* * *

"Uhhhhhh, what's taking Elsa so long?"

Fritz was still stationed outside the bedroom door of a grounded and increasingly bored princess who had recently decided the best way to pass the time was to sit under her covers and complain loudly.

"She's been gone for _hours_!" moaned Anna. "I thought she was going to apologize to Kristoff so we could date again!"

Actually, Fritz was feeling her pain, too. A few hours was a long time to be away from the love of your life.

"Well, no big deal," said Anna. "Any minute now she'll come through the door and tell me Kristoff still loves me and I'll be un-grounded and all will be right with the world."

"Shouldn't you be more concerned with the monster than your dating life?" asked Fritz.

Anna apparently didn't find this comment worth replying to.

"Then again..." She frowned. "What if... What if the reason it's taking so long is because he _doesn't _love me? What if Kristoff really broke up with me because he doesn't want me anymore?"

Fritz sighed and faced the hallway. Honestly, Anna was giving him a headache. Every few minutes, she would blurt out a different thought.

"No, I'm being crazy. Of course Kristoff loves me! He was the one who wanted to kiss in the first place!"

Five minutes later:

"Waaaaaaaaah! He hates me! Kristoff hates me!"

Ten minutes later:

"Man, I can't wait to get back together with Kristoff. I bet he'll apologize and it'll be soooo sweet..."

Twenty:

"He's found someone else, hasn't he? There's some big, blond beauty out there, and I'll never be able to compete because she's _so much fuller_ than me!"

Forty:

"Stupid Kristoff! Who needs him, anyways? I'll find another guy, and he'll be _really hot_, and we'll make out _all the time_, right in front of Kristoff, _and then he'll be sorry__!_"

An hour and twenty minutes later:

"My life is over... I'm so lonely... Om nom nom nom..."

_Wait, 'om nom nom?'_ Fritz turned back towards the bedroom to find Anna sitting up in bed. Her hair was a mess, her makeup had been smeared by the tears on her cheeks, and she was eating out of a gigantic tub of chocolate ice cream with a spoon about twice as big as any spoon has the right to be.

"Where'd you get that?" asked Fritz.

"I smuggled it in during a bathroom break," Anna said proudly. "Turns out now that everything in the castle's covered in ice, the sock drawer makes a great freezer."

Oh, of course. Fritz should have realized who he was dealing with. This wasn't a wild stallion who'd been broken in. It was a wild stallion who knew how to _act _like it'd been broken in.

"Well, I don't think you're allowed to have that." Fritz stepped into the bedroom. "Queen Elsa explicitly said 'no fun,' and eating ice cream is pretty fun."

Anna held the ice cream to her chest like it was her life blood. "No, wait, Fritz, you don't understand!" Her eyes were the size of dinner plates. "I just went through a breakup. I _need_ chocolate!"

"Um, maybe you've been having a little too much sugar, too..." It took only a tiny bit of wrestling to wrench the delicious frozen treat from Anna's hands. "Look, I don't trust you by yourself anymore, so I'm gonna shout for a passing maid to take this back-"

"No no no, I promise I'll be good, just give me the ice cream!"

"Didn't you _already_ promise Elsa you'd be good?"

"Oh, c'mon, I'll be your best friend!"

Fritz leaned out the door. "Hello?" he called. "Can anybody come give me a hand?"

"NO, STOP!" Anna's voice was growing frantic. "Uh... Hey, Fritz, _buddy_..." Her eyes narrowed. "How much money do you make in a week?"

Fritz looked back at her. "What?"

"How would you like to make double?"

"Are you... _bribing_ me for ice cream?" asked a stupefied Fritz.

"Oh, Fritz, _please_, bribery is such a _harsh_ word..."

"Well, forget it!" he snapped. "I already screwed up guarding you once. I'm not failing Queen Elsa again!"

Anna shook her head, then stepped out from under the covers. "You leave me no choice, Fritz..." She straightened her hair and rubbed off the smeared makeup. "I'll have to use my feminine charms on you."

"Your _what_-?" But the next thing Fritz knew, Anna's face was much closer to his own.

"I think it would make us _both_ happier if you gave me that ice cream, Fritz..." she said in a nasally voice.

"Why are you talking like that?" asked Fritz. "Do you have a cold?"

"Oh, _come_ _on__!_" Anna returned her face to a reasonable distance. "There's no point denying it, Fritz. We both know you like me."

"Uh, no actually," Fritz said truthfully. "You kind of assumed I did, and I figured it'd be rude to tell you no..."

"Then what was with all the blushing and stumbling over your words?" asked Anna. "Ever since I first saw you, you've been acting like a lovestruck- _Wait._" You could see it. You could see the gears whirling behind her eyes. "You're not... acting like that... _now_..."

There was about a bucketload of sweat dripping down Fritz's face. "Okay, why don't I step outside and not talk to you, and you stay in here and never ever ever finish connecting those dots?"

Fritz vamoosed into the hallway. His heart was treating the inside of his chest like a jungle drum. That'd been a close one. The thought of Anna ever discovering Fritz's dark secret was far too horrific to contemplate.

He tried to slow his breathing. She didn't know, she didn't know. This would all be written off as a zany misunderstand-

And then he saw it. The blur of red entering his peripheral vision. Fritz spun his head to face her with the reluctance of those who've faced Death himself.

Anna was looking at Fritz like she'd never truly seen him before now.

She wasn't not that bright, Fritz reminded himself. Besides, he'd never told anyone his big secret before. Nobody could possibly figure it out.

But he could see that gleam in her eyes, and in the light of that gleam, Fritz knew that_ life as he knew it was over_.

She couldn't have figured it out! She was probably about to blurt out something totally random-

"You know," Anna said silkily. "Elsa and I are _really_ close, and she takes my opinions _very_ seriously... If there was ever a boy who might strike her fancy, and I put in a good word for him, the two of them would be married just like _that_." She snapped her fingers.

_It's a trap__! s_creamed Fritz's brain.

"M-Muh-Married?" stammered Fritz.

Anna leaned in close. "I can hear the wedding bells already."


	28. Forbidden Love

A big, savory bite of chocolate ice cream passed Anna's lips.

"Mmm, _so_ good..." She sat up in her bed and turned to the doorway, where her bodyguard was sweating profusely. "But, y'know, I'm still _awfully_ bored. I'd go to the library to fetch a novel, but I'm _supposed_ to be grounded. If only some _kind soul_ could fetch it for me..."

Fritz shifted in place. "I don't think you're allowed to read while you're grounded."

"Oh _dear_, you're right," said Anna with an exaggerated frown. "I guess now I'll have to pass the time by composing a letter." She mimed writing with pen and paper in the air. "Dearest sister, you'll never guess what I've discovered about my bodyguard-"

"_What was the name of that book you wanted__?_"

This was it. This was what Fritz's life had become. An insane princess owned his soul.

He returned a minute later with book in tow. "Here, take it, please don't hurt me!"

Anna immediately dropped the novel on her dresser and didn't give it another glance. She was too busy looking at Fritz like he was a piece of meat.

"If you'll excuse me," said Fritz, "I'm off to stand guard outside your room and try to pretend the last twenty minutes never happened-"

Fritz's arm was caught halfway to the door. If Anna's face contained any more pure, unbridled joy, she'd start floating. "How long?"

Fritz gulped. "What do you mean?"

"How long have you _liked_ _her__?_"

Fritz struggled to escape, but the one-twenty pound girl was way stronger than him.

"Was it love at first sight? Does she give you butterflies in your tummy? Do you _long_ for her night and day? Can you not _bear_ being away from her? Have you walked with her once upon a dream?"

"Somebody help me!"

"_Answer the questions, Fritz._ Do you _need_ her? Would you do _anything_ to make her happy?" Anna started shaking him like pulpy orange juice.

"Yes! Yes!" Somehow the words Fritz had been holding back so long all came flooding out a once. "She's the most beautiful perfect girl I've ever seen and I can't stop thinking about her and I wanna be with her forever!"

Anna let out a delighted squeal. "This is perfect! I've always thought Elsa needed to date, but she's been too uptight to give it a try! Ooh, and you're a bodyguard! It's your job to protect her. That's _so romantic__!_" She retrieved her novel and shoved it in Fritz's face. "You're pretty much Elsa's servant, just like the farm boy in this book."

Fritz read the back cover aloud. "S. Morgenstern's scathing satire of European royalty-"

"Fritz, you _have _to confess to her!" cut in Anna.

He blinked in surprise. "You... You don't think she'll laugh at me?"

"What? Of course n- _Oh._" Anna paused, then looked Fritz over. "Fine, so you're a bit of a-" Her eyes lingered a while on his lumpy head. "Okay, a _lot_ of a fixer-upper, but... it's doable. It'll take a _whole_ _lotta_ work, but it's doable. I can help you." She extended a hand to shake. "Deal?"

Fritz stared at the hand. He couldn't help but feel this bargain was of the Faustian variety.

* * *

Fritz stood in the center of Anna's bedroom while Anna herself paced around him in circles. Despite the assurance that he and Elsa would be smooching under the full moon before long, Fritz wasn't holding together very well. All this peppiness was making him dizzy.

"The first thing we need to do is figure out Elsa's type and then tailor you to it," said Anna.

"You're her sister," said Fritz. "Shouldn't you know that kind of thing already?"

"Well, come to think of it, Elsa and I never _have_ talked about boys before..." Anna halted her pacing, lost in thought. "In fact, I don't _think_ I've ever seen her show interest in a guy..." But then she snapped out of it. "Y'know what? Let's just assume Elsa's into dudes, 'cause otherwise you're fighting a losing battle no matter what."

"Thanks, I feel so much more confident now."

"We can figure out Elsa's type through pure reason," said Anna. "She's related to me, right? And we do everything together, right? So, logically, she must be attracted to the same kind of men as me."

"And, uh, what kind would that be?"

A dreamy look overtook Anna's eyes. "Big, muscular ones with huge arms and that rugged wilderness-explorer persona about them."

Fritz glanced down at his own arms. "Um, twigs evoke the wilderness, right?"

Anna rolled her eyes, the dreaminess evaporating. "Fritz, you're a member of the royal guard. You can't be _that_ scrawny. I bet all your muscle is just hiding under your baggy uniform-"

Fritz let out a yelp as Anna went for his buttons. "What are you doing?"

Anna glared at him sternly. "This is for _science_, Fritz." She removed his shirt.

Fritz was paralyzed in awe. A girl had just undressed him, and now she was staring at his _bare_ _chest._

_No, stop it! Bad Fritz! _Fritz forced himself to clear his thoughts. He wasn't attracted to girls – He was attracted to Elsa, specifically. He was Elsasexual.

Of course, what was more blush-inducing was the clear disappointment on Anna's face.

"I was probably wrong," she suddenly said. "I'm sure Elsa's type is more... effeminate!"

* * *

"Can I at least put my shirt back on?"

"No, you'll get hair all over it."

Somehow, Fritz had been ended up sitting at Anna's dresser mirror while she stood behind him with a pair of scissors.

"Are you sure this is strictly necessary?" Fritz asked, his voice raising in pitch.

"I'm sorry, but you'll never win Elsa's affection with that hairstyle." Anna's scissors snipped the air menacingly.

"Alright, alright..." Fritz let out a resigned sigh. "So when did you learn to cut hair, anyways?"

Anna looked blank. "Learn? What's there to learn? You just do it."

Fritz shut his eyes tight.

* * *

Ten minutes later, Fritz's eyes still refused to open.

"How is it?" he asked in a trembling voice.

"You know what would _really_ make Elsa swoon?" said Anna. "A snazzy hat!"

* * *

Anna was back on her bed with the tub of ice cream while Fritz sat on the carpet. His guard uniform was back on and his guard hat firmly over his head.

"I've tried my best, Fritz," sighed Anna. "At this point, your best bet is to pray. But, hey, it can't hurt to try your luck, right?"

Fritz nodded slowly. Really, nobody knew Elsa better than her sister, so winning her approval ought to have instilled him with a newfound confidence. Unfortunately, Fritz was getting the idea that Anna's grip on reality wasn't the firmest.

"I've been thinking," he said. "Maybe if I keep acting quirky and awkward, Elsa will find it endearing."

"Oh, Fritz..." Anna shook her head. "That will never work."

"Well, how did _you_ attract _your_s_?_"

"I wooed him through sheer charisma and mastery of social skills."

"Oh."

There was a break in the conversation as Anna shoveled more ice cream into her mouth.

"And, err, if you don't mind me asking, how'd you break up with him?"

Anna bowed her head. "I... I rushed things, and I think it scared him off. Well, that and Elsa yelling at him."

"I'm sorry..." Fritz immediately moved to the edge of Anna's bed and put a hand on her shoulder. He was one of those people who felt an irresistible compulsion to comfort pretty, depressed girls. "I hope you can work things out with him."

Anna gave a small smile. "Yeah... and I hope things work out between you and Elsa. I have no clue how she's gonna react, but whatever she says, it's got to be better than keeping your feelings bottled up forever. I mean, look at you – You're about to explode any minute now."

That was weird. Fritz must have spent hours of his life gazing at Elsa's face from afar, and he'd never noticed that Anna's was almost exactly the same...

"Wait, I think I _do_ have one last piece of advice after all. Chocolate!" Anna held up her spoon, which was coated in the stuff.

"Huh?" Fritz shook himself out of his haze.

"Elsa's drawn to chocolate like a moth to the flame!" said Anna. "She loves it more than anything in the whole world, so... if _you_ were to become a supplier of chocolate to her, she'd love you by association!"

"Wow! That's a great idea!" Given Fritz's social skills were bordering nonexistent, the idea of buying candy for the girl he liked had genuinely never occurred to him before.

"Looks like you've got a plan, then," said Anna. "As soon as Elsa comes back from wherever she's been all this time, you can confess your feelings for her."

"Wait, _what__?_" All Fritz's enthusiasm was replaced with terror. "You want me to do it _right_ _now__?_ _Today__?_"

"Well, yeah. When were you planning on telling her, next year?"

"...At the earliest."

Anna rolled her eyes again. "It's not that scary, Fritz. Even if she turns you down, this is _Elsa_ we're talking about. She's barely got a mean bone in her body. And you seem like a nice enough- Wait." She leaned in the examine Fritz carefully. "You're not a violent sociopath who's only pretending to like Elsa to get to the throne, are you?"

"_What__?_"

"Sorry, just checking."

Fritz stared at his shoes. "To tell you the truth, Your Highness, I don't think I'll _ever_ tell Elsa. Her life seems fine without me, and... I can't screw up if I don't try, right?"

Anna gaped at him like he was a madman. "That's no way to live life! Do you think I'd do, like, half the stuff I do if I was worried about screwing up?"

"That explains a lot..."

"You're letting yourself get nervous, that's all," said Anna. "Maybe if there was some way to... _Ooh, ooh, I've got an idea__!_"

"Not another one!"

"Wait outside. I'll only be a minute."

Fritz found himself forced into the hallway, the door closing behind him. He could hear drawers squeaking open and then ruffling from within the bedroom. Given past experiences, Fritz didn't think this boded well. He was getting this strange, wiggly feeling in the pit of his stomach, and the most troubling part was... he wasn't sure if it was stemming from the prospect of dating Elsa or... _something else entirely_...

_Are you crazy?_ snapped Fritz's brain. _You've been fawning over Elsa for weeks, and now, right before your big chance with her, NOW you want to doubt yourself? Pull yourself together, man! You can't afford to have even the slightest bit of uncertainty that the person you love more than anyone else in the whole world is Queen El-_

The door swung open, and Fritz eyes widened.

There stood Princess Anna... in a sky blue dress, cape billowing out behind her, leg visible, hair in an over-the-shoulder-braid-thingy instead of pigtails... Oh lord, how had it taken Fritz this long to notice? She looked _exactly the same. _Anna had the same lips. The same eyelashes. The same... shoulders, just... _shoulders._

"I thought we could do a roleplay," said Anna. "You know, for practice. I found this dress in my closet. Pretty close to hers, right?"

Fritz opened his mouth. It felt very dry.

"I mean, I think I can pull her off." Anna giggled to herself. "Look, I can even do that thing she does with her hips."

Fritz's eyes followed the movement of the hips exactly.

"Okay, you ready? I'll start." Anna cleared her throat, then put on a softer yet somewhat scratchy voice. "Despite having an amazing sister, I find the stress of running a kingdom while dealing with my ice powers to be _so_ hard on me! If _only_ I had someone I could turn to for comfort... Why, _hello_, Fritz. I never noticed how pretty your eyes were."

Holy cow, that _was_ a good impression. Fritz found himself blushing almost as much as if he was genuinely attracted to Anna... Ha ha ha! That would be crazy.

"I... uh..." said Fritz in the most seductive voice he was capable of.

Anna waved her hand, making a "go on" gesture.

"Uh... Princess- I mean, Queen Elsa... I've always wanted to say..."

_Isn't she broken up with her boyfriend?_ pointed out Fritz's brain. _Strictly speaking, she's single right now..._

"To say..."

Anna nodded, an eager smile on her cheeks.

_Here goes nothing._ Fritz grabbed her hands and let it all out:

"Before I came to the palace, I was just a loser nobody cared about, and I felt worthless, but then I met you, and at first you ignored me, too, but then you did something nobody else has ever done... You payed attentionto me, and you told me I'm not a loser, and... for the first time in my entire life, I felt good about myself. But I also saw that you're really hurting, too, and at first I thought I was just attracted to you because you're gorgeous, but then, when I saw you unhappy, I couldn't stand it, and I... I realized how perfect and special you are, and I don't think you realize it yourself, and... all I want is to do for you what you did for me... because... I love you."

He shut his eyes, bowing his head.

"Wow... Fritz, that was... that was perfect!" said Elsa. "Who'd have thought under all that wimpiness... you're such a _charmer_..." Elsa's face moved closer to his own.

There was some remote part of Fritz's brain screaming, _Elsa doesn't have freckles, you fool!_ But he was tuning it out.

* * *

The flock of snowbirds had roosted outside the mouth of a deep cave, where the horse and reindeer pulled to a halt so their riders could dismount. Elsa frowned and examined the area. The grass outside the cave was brown and dead, and over the cliffside was a clear view of Arendelle castle.

"Are you _sure_ you want to come?" she asked.

"Well, it's a little late to back out now, anyways," said Kristoff. "What, am I supposed to wait outside while you go in and get killed by a wight?" He turned to Sven. "Oh, but that's exactly what you should do, buddy. You've already been shot full of way too many arrows." Sven didn't look too disappointed at missing out on the monster-laden cave.

Elsa tensed, forcing herself to gaze into its mouth. Even from the entrance, you could see the bones poking out. Elsa took a deep breath. Then, with a wave of her arm, she transformed her ice-dress back into the same armor she'd worn the day of the rebellion.

"Okay, that's the coolest thing I've ever seen," said Kristoff. "But, uh, are you sure you can move around in that stuff? Isn't it a little heavy for you?"

"It's fine," said Elsa. "I'm not going in there without at least some protection. And neither should you. Hold still."

"Wha-?" The next thing he knew, Kristoff was wearing ice-armor of his own. "_Alright,_ now we're in business!"

"Sorry if it's cold," said Elsa. "It shouldn't melt for a while, though."

"At this rate, why not make a whole ice-armory to storm the cave with?" grinned Kristoff. "An army of snowmen, maybe?"

Elsa gazed at the cave entrance, her face a picture of confidence. "We shouldn't need it."

* * *

The wight lay sprawled over his hay, panting. His side hurt, his feet ached, and for once he wasn't hungry. All he wanted was to sleep.

_The man is still alive,_ one of his voices reminded him. The wight lifted his head to examine his victim, who was slumped against the rock wall, eyes shut. _Kill him before he awakens._

_So... tired..._ said another voice.

_Eat him!_ ordered another. _Eat him now!_

_No, not yet! We have to ask why... why he loves her-_

_-and make him suffer!_ added yet another. _Make him- _**Run.**

A chill went up the wight's spine.

_She's here. _**Run**_._

_What? She found us? How- _**Run.**

For once, the voices reached a consensus. Every last one was shouting:

**Run**.

_Run_!

_RUN_!

**Run!**

_Run_.

The wight sprang to all fours and was halfway to the cave entrance before he realized... she was standing _right_ _there_. Beautiful. Terrible. Hair billowing in the wind she generated.

_She's here. No escape. No esc-_

"No!" he shouted, raising to his legs and taking a step backwards. "Get away! It's too early! It wasn't supposed to be this way-"

A wave of ice crashed over him. The wight squirmed uselessly, but everything save his head was completely cased. A feral shriek left his mouth.

"_N__o__!_ No! Stop it! It... It wasn't supposed to be this way..."

* * *

Elsa stared. She couldn't believe her eyes. This was it? _This_ was _it__?_ Elsa had spent countless nights in a cold sweat, the fear of this thing tearing her mind apart, and now that she was finally here, it went down the same as any normal person?

In its struggles, the creature dislodged its hood, revealing an obviously human head. Its skin was stretched tightly, most of it blotchy blue and brown, alongside some sunken yellow eyeballs and long, greasy gray hair. Elsa had to shake the mental image of freezer-burned meat. It was disgusting, but... whatever this thing was, it struck her as more pathetic than frightening.

"Are you the wight?" she demanded.

The living corpse ceased its struggles and fixed its glassy eyes on her.

"How do you know about me?" it asked in a raspy voice. "Did Adrian tell you? He was naughty. I should never have trusted him-"

"A detective told me," said Elsa. "He's been tracking you since you first came to Arendelle."

"The detective?" The wight's eyes narrowed. "It's gotten to you already. Don't listen to It, Elsa! It's trying to turn us against each other!"

"_You're a murderer!_" Elsa gestured to the cavern's floor, which was almost completely covered in scattered bones and partial skeletons. "You've killed innocent girls!"

The wight let out a chuckle. "Ooh, then that makes two of us, doesn't it?"

Elsa's heart skipped a beat. "_What__?_"

Kristoff stepped forward from behind. "Uh, is it just me, or is this thing making no sense at all? He's probably crazy. I don't think he's got any magic, though, or he'd have escaped already. Let's haul him back home. Maybe Grand Pabbie can have a look at him and-"

But he was interrupted by a howl of pain from within the ice. The wight struggled relentlessly against its restraints, its cries growing increasingly frantic.

"Stop it! What are you doing?" The wight's breaths grew ragged, its chest heaving. "You're hurting me! Stop it! It hurts! _It_ _hurts__!_"

Now Elsa's own breathing came unhinged. "W-What?" she repeated, dazed. "No, I'm not doing anything-"

"Um, Elsa-" Kristoff tried to say.

"_The ice__!_" shrieked the wight. "_The ice is killing me! It's killing_-"

"_Elsa_, _wait_-"

With a wave of Elsa's arms, the ice vanished, and the wight fell to the dirt. For a moment, there was silence, save for Elsa's panting. The word echoed in her skull: _killing... killing... killing..._

But then the wight lifted itself off the ground, and she caught sight of its red-stained teeth. It was grinning. "Too easy."

The next moment happened in the span of heartbeats. The wight lunged, teeth open, bony black fingers aloft... Elsa impulsively cringed... and then Kristoff sucker-punched it, sending the wight skidding across the cave.

"Freeze it again!" yelled Kristoff.

Elsa snapped back to reality in time to send a bolt of magic after it, but the wight was out the cave in another heartbeat.

"After it!" On their maker's command, the snowbirds swarmed the wight, doing their best to peck it and halt its path, but the next heartbeat, the wight slipped behind the trees and disappeared.

Elsa remained in the cave, breathing heavily.

"Are you out of your mind?" spat Kristoff. "You had it! Why the heck would you let it out of your ice?"

"I... thought I was killing it," said Elsa faintly.

"Yeah, you sure fell for that one," snorted Kristoff. "And, I mean, even if you _did_ kill it, that wouldn't exactly be the worst..." But his voice trailed off as he spotted the tears on her cheeks. "Elsa? What's wrong?"

"It knew," whispered Elsa. "_It_ _knew_..." She dropped to her knees.

"You okay?" Kristoff knelt to put a hand on her shoulder. "What did it know?"

* * *

The boy and girl sat in the middle of a damp, bone-filled cave, completely still save for the girl's gentle sobbing.

"That's not your fault," said Kristoff. "You couldn't control your powers yet, and it's not like you _asked_ to be born with them. It was an accident."

Elsa nodded slowly. "I know," she said, her voice strained. "I know I shouldn't blame myself, but... it's hard not to."

Kristoff put his other hand on her other shoulder. "But don't you see the wight _knows_ that? If you hadn't let it bother you, we could've beaten it already, and Anna would be safe."

Elsa shut her eyes. "I'm sorry..."

"Hey, cut that out, you've got nothing to be sorry about," said Kristoff firmly. "And as for Adrian, he's _still_ a complete jerk. It doesn't matter _what_ happened to him – Nobody has the right to do what he tried to do. Now, c'mon, we can't sit around here all day."

Elsa nodded again. "Thank you for understanding, Kristoff."

"No problem. But, uh, could you get rid of this armor now?" Kristoff put on a small smile. "My butt's totally numb."

As soon as they were back in their regular clothes, the pair gave the wight's lair a thorough examination. Mostly they found bones and hay near the entrance, and the snowbirds reported nothing different in the deeper, darker sections, but they did find _one_ remarkable feature.

"Check this out," called Kristoff, lifting up a portrait resting against the cave wall. "He's got a picture of Anna in here. That's kind of... stalkerish."

"He wants to kill her," said Elsa, walking over to him. "He wants to hurt me, and he knows killing her is the best way to do that, just like Adrian did. That's why he's been attacking girls that match Anna's description."

But Kristoff didn't seem to be listening. His attention was fixed on something that'd fallen out from behind the picture frame.

"Whoa." Kristoff dropped the portrait and retrieved the item – a large blade that appeared to be made of blue crystal. "He really _did_ have another ice-eating sword."

Elsa shot a beam of frost and watched it get drawn into the blade. "That explains where Adrian got his," she said, "but we don't know who this wight is or how he got these weapons. They seem like they were enchanted specifically to counter my magic."

"Well, I guess this means today wasn't a _total_ waste." Kristoff headed outside to stow the sword on Sven's saddle. "We wouldn't want any bad guys getting their hands on this."

After that, there wasn't much else to do but load the unconscious Samson onto Sven and prepare to leave. Elsa ordered a handful of snowbirds to guard the cave in case the wight returned, while the rest were told to either search the wilderness or keep watch over the castle.

As she walked to her horse, Elsa felt a lightness in her chest. He may have gotten away, but now she'd at least seen her enemy. Even a living corpse wasn't as scary as the unknown. Besides, now that Elsa had her snowbirds, she could keep watch for the wight at all times. That meant Elsa could finally sleep at night. Why hadn't she thought to create them sooner?

"Kristoff?" Elsa caught him just before he mounted his reindeer.

"Yeah, Elsa?" he asked, turning towards her.

Elsa smiled at him. "You saved my life today. Thank you."

Kristoff smiled back. "Hey, don't mention it."

"What I said to you before... when I found you with Anna... I was wrong." She leaned in to give him a hug. "I think I can understand what Anna sees in you."

"Whoa, now!" Kristoff raised his hands in the air, grinning. "I may be single now, but my heart belongs to Anna. Don't you try and tempt me! I am _totally_ faithful to your sister."

* * *

A moan escaped Fritz. The lips brushing his own grew more and more forceful until the red-haired beauty lost all control and slammed him against the wall, her tongue pushing its way into his mouth.

Fritz's brain should've been thinking something like, _I don't think making out with her sister is helping your chances with Elsa_, or at least, _Her ex is going to cut you up and feed you to his reindeer_, but the only thought Fritz seemed capable of was, _This is so wrong... AND YET SO RIGHT!_


	29. Deep, Deep, Deep, Deep Shame

A red-haired girl and a boy with a disheveled hat hiding an equally disheveled haircut sat shoulder to shoulder against the bedroom wall. They were doing their best not to meet each other's eyes and sporting identical, crimson cheeks.

"What have we done?" breathed Anna. "_What have we done?_"

Fritz said nothing, but his brain was being highly talkative. _Welcome to the Ninth Circle of the Friend Zone... THE REBOUND!_

"How did this happen?" said Anna, horror gripping her voice. "We don't even like each other! You're not even handsome!"

_You know why you did this, right?_ said Fritz's brain. _It's because she's dressed as Elsa. That's... That's just sad, even by _your_ standards._

"I know we're broken up, but... I still love Kristoff!" Anna buried her face in her hands. "And I just cheated on him!"

_You do realize you're spending the rest of your life hiding from this man?_ _He smells like reindeer. You're _terrified_ of reindeer. _

"And... _oh no_, was that your _first_ _kiss_?" Anna gaped at Fritz like she'd ruined his life. "I stole your first kiss from Elsa!_ I'm a monster!_"

"No, no, it's not your fault!" Fritz finally spoke up. "_I_ did this..."

_Actually, I seem to recall you mostly being on the receiving end, _snarked his brain.

"I let myself get carried away," said Fritz. "I've been a _little_ repressed these last few weeks."

"And I was upset at Kristoff breaking up with me," said Anna. "And then, when I got all dressed up, and we started roleplaying, and you said all those sweet things, and I... I... _I don't know__!_"

"Fine, we _both_ screwed up," Fritz sighed. "I guess that's a welcome change from me doing it all on my own."

Anna wiped her eyes. "Alright, alright... so long as we agree this was a horrible mistake, let's never talk about it again. It'll be like it never happened."

"Yeah, yeah, great idea," nodded Fritz. "Not talking about it, starting right now." He made it two whole seconds before blurting out, "Was I... _good_?"

There was a brief silence.

"Yes," said Anna.

"You hesitated," said Olaf.

"_A__aaaaaagh!_"

The two of them sprang to their feet, screaming their heads off at the snowman standing in the doorway.

"How long have you been there?" asked Anna.

"I came in right before you started kissing," Olaf said brightly.

Fritz and Anna let out simultaneous groans.

Anna steadied herself, then knelt down to meet Olaf's coal eyes. "Olaf, what you saw here... It has to stay a secret, okay?"

"Ooh, ooh, I'm great at keeping secrets!" said Olaf. "Like how I promised Marshmallow I wouldn't tell anyone he wants to wear women's clothing!"

Fritz and Anna traded uneasy glances.

"Maybe we should come clean now and get our inevitable punishment over with," said Fritz.

"Don't be ridiculous!" scoffed Anna. "Olaf won't tell a soul. All we have to do is make him understand the truth." She turned back to Olaf. "Olaf, listen, you know I love Kristoff, right?" Olaf nodded, his flurry cloud bobbing up and down. "We're temporarily broken up, and I want to get back with him, but... Fritz and I were roleplaying, and we got a little _into_ it and... made a mistake."

"And then you kissed!" added Olaf.

Anna sighed. "Yes, and then we did _that_. But Fritz and I don't love each other, and we're never going to do it again, and we wish we hadn't in the first place, so... now we're not going to talk about it, especially not to Kristoff. It would just make him upset for no reason. Do you understand?"

Olaf nodded again.

"Good. Now let's all-"

"_I learned a secret__!_" The next instant, Olaf was dashing down the hallway. "Hey, everyone, guess what? I learned a secret!"

* * *

By nightfall, the procession of Elsa atop her horse and Kristoff with the still-unconscious Samson atop Sven came to a halt outside the palace gates, which opened for them. Strictly speaking, the castle was on lockdown, and no one was supposed to be allowed in, but they made exceptions for crowned monarchs.

"My lady, where have you been?" Anders pushed his way to the head of the swarm of staff members coming to the entrance courtyard. "You can't waltz out of the castle unannounced right after a guard is murdered and expect to- Oh." His eyes landed on the very alive-looking Samson slumped over Kristoff's shoulder. "I see," he said dryly. "You went on a magical adventure to battle the monster, didn't you?"

Elsa's only reply was a smile. "Bring this guard to the infirmary."

Samson was rushed off to receive immediate medical attention (The palace physicians would later be scratching their heads at Samson's miraculous recovery. Though the medicine of the time wasn't advanced enough to realize it, what had saved Samson from crippling brain damage was the abnormally high amount of meat between his miniscule brain and firm, chiseled noggin).

After dropping the horse off at the stable, Elsa and Kristoff were preparing to head inside when one of the snowbirds landed in the palace grounds.

"We briefly spotted the wight at the southern edge of the city before losing it again," it said. "It appears you scared it away, Your Majesty."

Elsa sighed in relief. "Good, good. Keep up your watch." The bird took off without another word.

"Are you _sure_ those aren't people?" asked Kristoff. "I mean, if they can talk, and they can understand what's-"

"We're not debating it now." Elsa retrieved the blue sword from Sven's saddle. "We need to dispose of this."

"Want to bring it to Grand Pabbie?"

"Later. As of now, though... I have an idea."

Kristoff shrugged and followed Elsa into the castle, though Sven was forced to wait outside – mostly to spare Anders from popping a blood vessel. Elsa and Kristoff ended up climbing the frosty staircase into the recently-added ice-tower.

"Nobody should bother it here." Elsa stabbed the sword face-down into the floor, then released her grip on the hilt and drew forth her magic. With no wielder to command it, the crystal blade allowed itself to be sealed inside a prism of ice. "Later, we'll see if it can't be destroyed."

"I sure hope that was the last ice-eating sword out there," said Kristoff. "What about Adrian's? Didn't you say it fell in the lake?"

Elsa looked thoughtful. "It should be fine for the time being, but maybe when I have the time, I could make some kind of aquatic snowman..."

"Uh, getting a little trigger-happy with the snowmen, aren't you?" Kristoff gave her a look. "You said you never want to un-make them, right? So if you keep making them to do random chores, you're gonna go up to your ears in snowmen. I mean, _one_ Olaf is enough of a handful..." He shuddered at the thought.

Elsa gazed off the balcony, staring at the northern lights shining over the town. "I'll admit making life is one part of my powers I'm not totally at peace with, but... no matter how many I end up making, I _love_ my snowmen. They're like my children. "

"Yeah, I understand. Anyways, it's getting pretty late." Kristoff made for the stairs. "Sven and me had better head home."

"Kristoff, wait!" Elsa suddenly called out. He halted and glanced back at her. "That flat you live in..." A smile crossed her face. "It doesn't seem good enough for the Official Ice Master. We have more than enough rooms here at the palace."

Kristoff fidgeted with his hair. "You don't have to do that."

"I want to," said Elsa. "I owe you that much. Besides, half the reason Anna's been so restless around the castle is that you have to make a trip every time you want to visit her."

Kristoff laughed. "Oh, so you _do_ approve of us? Are you sure you can trust us all alone in a huge castle?"

Elsa laughed in turn. "Good point." She waved her arm, and after a minute one of the snowbirds swooped down onto the balcony to roost on her finger. "Keep an eye on this boy. If you catch him trying to sleep with my sister, I want a full report on it."

If you'd thought Fritz and Anna were looking pretty red before, that's because you hadn't seen Kristoff's face right now.

After that, Elsa walked her new friend back to the gates.

"You can move your belongings here as soon as you're ready," she said.

"Shouldn't take long," Kristoff said as he swung a leg over Sven. "I only need my sled and my reindeer."

"Oh, and let's not tell Anna about this yet," Elsa added, smiling again. "She's still thinks she's grounded. It'll make a nice surprise."

"Alrighty, then. See ya!" And with that, the boy and his reindeer were off.

Elsa remained in the courtyard a while longer. Honestly, she couldn't remember the last time she'd felt this genuinely happy. And to think this morning, she'd woken up thinking Anna hated her. Elsa couldn't wait to see her face when she learned Kristoff not only wanted to get back with her, but he'd be living in the castle. Anna was in for a big surprise.

"Hi, Elsa!" Just then, Olaf burst out the front doors and made a bee-line for her. "Guess what? I learned a secret!"

* * *

"_Olaf, nooooooooooooo!_"

A minute later, Anna and Fritz charged through the moonlit courtyard. Anna made a dramatic tumble over the pavement, landing directly between her sister and the snowman.

"How much did Olaf tell you?" Anna asked, panting. She gazed up at Elsa, who had a look of total shock on her face.

"Anna, you have some explaining to do."

"It's all a crazy misunderstanding!" yelped Anna. "I'm innocent!"

"Innocent?" repeated Elsa. "How can you be innocent? You're standing right there!"

"I am totally faithful to- Wait, what?" Anna blinked, confused.

"You _know_ you're not supposed to leave your room, Anna!" said Elsa, her brow creasing. "You're still grounded."

"Oh. Right." Anna laughed in relief. "So, uh, Olaf didn't tell you anything... interesting?"

"Nope, I haven't told her about you k- Mmmp mmp mmp!" Olaf suddenly found a hand clamped over his mouth.

"_Don't you know how to keep a secret?_" Anna asked in a harsh whisper.

"I was only telling people I _had_ a secret," said Olaf. "I wasn't gonna say what it was."

"_But that's still cluing people in that we have something to hide!_"

Olaf's eyes widened. "Ohhhhhhh... I understand." (_Editor's Note_: Olaf did not actually understand.)

"What's going on?" Elsa took a look over Anna. "Why are you..." She absently passed her fingers through her own braid, flicking it over her shoulder to match Anna's.

"Um..." Anna glanced down at her sky blue dress with a leg showing, then over at Elsa's. "You must be wondering why I'm dressed like you," she said slowly. "And there is a _perfectly_ _reasonable_ explanation."

Elsa folded her arms.

"You see... I, uh... Tell her the perfectly reasonable explanation, Fritz." Anna nudged him in the gut.

"She wanted to look pretty!" Fritz immediately said. Anna face-palmed.

"I'm... flattered." Elsa sounded more than a little confused. "Now no more antics, Anna. We have work to do."

"We do?" Anna was taken by the arm and led inside, leaving Fritz and Olaf behind.

She was brought to her bedroom, where Elsa immediately opened Anna's dresser drawers and rummaged through the wide selection of elegant dresses all princesses have at their disposal.

"What are you doing?"

"I spoke with Kristoff," said Elsa.

Anna's face lit up. "Really? How'd it go? What'd he say? Does he still love me? Do you still hate him?"

Elsa smiled at her. "I don't see how that's relevant. All you need to know is I apologized."

"Come _on_, don't leave me in suspense!"

"I upheld my end of the deal." Elsa turned towards Anna, her eyes glistening with schadenfreude. "And that means _someone_ had better be ready to be a 'perfect little princess.'"

Anna's own eyes went wide with fear. "Uh... I'm perfect just the way I am." She inched towards the door, but the next instant, it was blocked by a wall of ice.

"There's no weaseling your way out of this, Anna." Elsa held up a bright pink dress covered in frills. "This one should do..."

Anna stared at the dress the way dogs stare at cats. "I don't know how that got in my closet, but I am never ever ever ever _ever_ wearing it."

* * *

The sunrise poured through the windows of the royal throne room, illuminating the scene of Elsa seated on her icy chair and the Duke of Weaseltown standing at her side. However, the more prominent feature of the room was Anna, who was standing across from the Duke and stuck inside a pink dress smothered in frills. Her unbraided hair had been brushed completely straight, and her posture had been brushed even straighter.

"You have my _sincerest_ apologies for my violent outburst the other day." Anna's voice was slow, quiet, and devoid of all bounciness. It was unrecognizable. "My behavior was completely unacceptable. The fault lies entirely with my own personal immaturity, and it has no absolutely no bearing whatsoever on the Arendelle monarchy's opinion of... _Weselton-_" Anna had to stop for a second to throw up in her mouth. "-which is a..." She shot Elsa a pleading look.

Behind the Duke's back, Elsa mouthed, "_Commendable_."

"...commendable nation who we hope to continue experiencing positive trade relations with." Anna ended the speech with a perfect curtsy.

You could see the smugness oozing out the Duke's mustache. "And?"

Anna shut her eyes and took a breath. "And you are a _wonderful_ dancer."

The Duke nodded his approval to Elsa. "Excellent, excellent. It's good to hear your sister finally talking sense. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to get some breakfast. Your palace doesn't carry Weselton's famous buttered brunost, but it will soon enough, won't it?" He chuckled to himself as he waltzed out the door.

As soon as the Duke was out of sight, Anna dropped her shoulders and made a face in his direction. "That was the grossest thing I've ever done in my life, and I almost kissed Hans once. I'm never doing anything bad to that guy again!"

Elsa finally let out the laughter she'd been stifling. "Then I guess you've learned something, haven't you?"

"Are _all_ politicians like that?" Anna turned to Elsa, her eyes widening. "Do you have to act like this to people _all the time__?_"

"Let's just say, when I saw your fist in his face, I felt envy..."

Now that Anna's suffering was over, the sisters made for her bedroom so she could change into an outfit that wasn't humiliating in every conceivable way.

"So whatever happened to the wight?" asked Anna. "Did you send guards after the blood trail?"

"It's been... dealt with for now," said Elsa. "The wight's left the town, and if it returns, I'll know about it. I'll explain later."

Anna looked lost, but she didn't press the issue.

"The important thing is you're safe for now," said Elsa. "And, since apologizing was obviously punishment enough, I see no reason to keep you grounded anymore."

"_Really?_" All the bounciness seeped back into Anna at once. "You're the best!" She halted their march to give Elsa a big hug. "What about Kristoff? Can I see him?"

Elsa beamed. "Oh, I don't know, I'm sure he'll turn up eventually..."

"You know, if he was staying broken up with me, you wouldn't look so happy about it."

"Are you _sure_? You _are_ talking about the person who laughed like a maniac when I first saw you in that dress..."

* * *

When he'd seen them side by side in the courtyard yesterday, it was like a blindfold had been lifted off. How could Fritz have ever thought Anna looked remotely as pretty as her sister? It wasn't that Anna _wasn't_ pretty, but, well, seeing them side-by-side in identical outfits had highlighted their differences. Sure, Anna was a beautiful girl, but Elsa was a beautiful _woman._

Fritz had been weak, and he'd given into temptation, and now all he wanted to do was throw himself to the mercy of his goddess and beg for forgiveness. But he was still Anna's bodyguard, and that meant when the sisters finally went their separate ways so Elsa could do her queenly duties, Fritz was stuck with Anna. He ended up standing outside her door while she changed clothes. The knowledge that Anna was undressed on the other side of a thin slab of wood didn't grip Fritz's mind at all, which he took as a sign the spell had broken completely.

After a while, the door re-opened, revealing a princess who was back in pigtails and a less painfully frilly dress.

"Fritz!" said Anna, her voice trembling with excitement.

"Um, y-yeah?" said Fritz, his voice trembling with the opposite.

"I'm not grounded anymore, and that means you're not stuck standing outside my bedroom forever... and that means you can go pay Elsa a visit."

Fritz gulped. "And what do you expect to... happen on this visit, exactly?"

Anna's expression meant Fritz knew _exactly_ what she expected. "Ever since she got back from wherever she was yesterday, Elsa's been in a great mood. The timing couldn't be better! Now's your chance to make your move!"

That was fine, except that Fritz's move always seemed to be getting himself out of check. Anna ended up forcing him to march towards Elsa's room alone. His legs had never felt heavier.

Maybe that's why he crashed into someone. Laundry was sent flying in all directions as Fritz and the newcomer hit the floor, both letting out highly feminine "Oofs!"

"Sorry, sorry!" Fritz pulled himself off the ground and caught sight of his victim.

"No, no, that was my fault!" It was a girl, hardly older than Anna, with short brunette hair. Judging from her outfit, she was one of the palace maids.

Fritz bent down to retrieve the fallen laundry. "Uh, hi, there." That wasn't him trying to be polite – That was Fritz's reflexive response to any adequately pretty girl. "I, uh, haven't seen you around before."

"I just started working here." The bent down, too, and they ended up bumping heads again. "Ow- I'm sorry!" she yelped, blushing. "I mean, uh, I'm Charlotte. That's my name."

"Fritz," said Fritz. "Uh, that's my name, too. Fritz is, I mean, not... Um, I'd better be going."

"Yeah, me too."

Fritz handed Charlotte the laundry pile and then scurried off towards Elsa's room.

Well, that had certainly been a crazy random happenstance. Oh well, Fritz was sure it would have no bearing on the overall course of his life. Anyways, time to go confess his feelings to his true love.

* * *

Elsa ought to be getting work done – Whittling down the block of paperwork in her study had been put on hold to battle a wight – but somehow she found herself in her bedroom, seated before her ice-mirror. She stared at her reflection. It stared back. All at once, Elsa remembered she had a friend, and speaking to her felt like the most natural thing in the world.

"You were right, Mary," said Elsa. "The wight wasn't as dangerous as I'd thought. In fact, if I hadn't hesitated... the threat would be ended already."

"_You must never doubt me, Elsa,_" said Mary. "_I will always do what's best for you.__"_

Elsa nodded. "You're right, but... there's something else I've been feeling, and it's... strange. When I made my first two snowmen, it was on accident. I loved them anyways, but I was scared to make more. Now... I almost feel like I _want_ to make more snowmen. Is... Is that okay?"

A smile crossed Mary's face, causing the same to cross Elsa's. "_It's only natural. You have the power to create life. You should use it_. _But..._" Both of their eyes narrowed. "_...you also have the power to end it. The wight knows that. It knows the truth abou__t__-"_

"Queen Elsa?" A skinny boy stuck his head through the doorway. "Can I talk to you for a-?"

"_No_," Elsa snapped, glaring at him. "_Shouldn't you be guarding Anna_?"

"Yes, Your Majesty..." Fritz slinked back out the room.

Elsa returned her gaze to the mirror. "I'm sorry about that."

"_We would have more privacy if you put a door in the empty frame,_" said Mary.

"It's fine the way it is. What were you saying before?"

"_We shouldn't talk much longer. The important thing is that you never doubt me again._"

"But Mary..." Elsa shut her eyes. That was strange. During their last conversation, articulating this idea had brought her physical pain, but now it all seemed so much clearer. In fact, for a second or so, Elsa even remembered that speaking to a magic mirror only you know about isn't a totally normal thing to do. "You were wrong... In fact, you've been wrong about a lot of things."

Mary's eyes narrowed. "_What did you say__?_"

"I took the time to get to know Kristoff," said Elsa, "and he's not a bad person. He saved my life."

"_You idiot._" The reflection's eyebrows quivered. "_Hans saved your life when the chandelier fell. It doesn't mean anything. And now what have you done? You..._" Mary's eyes glazed over, and then a sharp pain passed Elsa's head.

"_You brought him into our home?_" realized Mary. "_Don't you see that's exactly what they wanted? You've gone against everything I told you!_"

"Mary, no, I-" Elsa's protest morphed into a cry of pain. She clutched her forehead, kneeling over in her chair.

"_All I've ever done is help you, tell you the truth, and you spit in my face?_" Mary stood the two of them back up and leaned in to the icy glass.

"I'm sorry..." Elsa wasn't sure if the tears dripping down her cheeks were from her shame at disappointing Mary or the growing agony in her forehead. "I'm sorry..."

"_Do you love me, Elsa?_" asked Mary.

"Yes!"

"_Then exile Kristoff from your country. And your sister's a liar, too. She doesn't love you. Make sure she doesn't go unpunished."_

"What?" That seemed to be enough to snap Elsa out of her fog. "Never! Why would you even say that?"

Mary let out a cold laugh. "_Fine. Don't believe me. But mark my words, Snow Queen – __E__ither the people you trust will hurt you, or you will hurt them. The truth always comes out in the end. Go ahead, see how you manage without my help... It will only cause you __pain__."_

On the last word, Mary vanished, leaving nothing in the ice-mirror but a plain reflection. For a moment, Elsa sat in silence, confused. Why was she in front of her mirror again?

Then the throbbing in her skull got worse. Much worse.

"_Elsa__!_" The sound of screaming sent Fritz rushing back into the bedroom. He arrived right in time to watch Elsa attempt to rise to her feet and instead crumple to the floor.

It wasn't just a pain in her head, Elsa dimly realized. Her breathing was all wrong again, but... it wasn't like the other times. Even when the rebels had burned the castle, she could at least suck in air properly. It hadn't left her throat tight. It hadn't felt like she'd been stabbed in the chest.

When Fritz tried to grab her, Elsa's hand smacked him in the face, which was odd because she hadn't told it to. Then her other arm flailed through the air, and she tasted blood – She'd bitten her tongue. That was when Elsa realized she wasn't in control of her own body.

And then the panic set in.


	30. On the Fritz

A pair of snowy wings glided high above the fjords, circling around a specific thicket of forest. For a second, the snowbird could've sworn it spotted a dark shape in the trees outside Arendelle castle island, but after a thorough search, it found nothing.

The snowbird landed in a forest clearing, where it spotted one of its brothers perched on the grass. This snowbird was staring at something before it – a non-snowy, flesh-and-feathers bird sprawled across the dirt, motionless.

"Our creator's orders were to watch the forest," said the first bird. The other one turned to it, taking a moment before opening its ice-beak.

"...Yes," it said. "I will follow the creator's orders. I want to make her... happy."

The first snowbird cocked its head. Happy? What an odd thought. It'd never considered whether or not it was happy before. The snowbird had simply been given orders by its creator, and it'd carried them out.

The first bird was just about to take off when the second said, "Wait!" The first turned back to it, staring with its clear ice-eyes.

The second snowbird looked back at the flesh-bird. "What... _happens_ when we die?"

* * *

At first Elsa lay in a pleasant, half-awake haze... but then she realized these bedsheets weren't the same texture as hers, and her eyes shot open.

"She's awake!"

Elsa was hit with a murmur of voices. She was disoriented until she recognized the curtains and the design of the wallpaper beneath the layer of ice – This was the palace infirmary. Elsa sat up to find a small crowd of people at her bedside. There was Anna at the head, followed by Fritz, Anders, and Olaf.

"Morning, sleepyhead," Anna said gently. "How are you feeling?"

Elsa's head was throbbing, her tongue ached, and she was sore all over. "I feel fine," she said. "What... What's going on?"

Everyone else in the room looked distinctly uncomfortable – Well, except Olaf, who looked as blissfully happy as ever.

"The doctors said you had some kind of panic attack," said Anna.

Elsa's chest tightened. It wasn't the attack itself that got to her so much as the fact that everybody knew. All eyes were fixed on Elsa like she might break apart any moment now.

"How many people know about this?" she asked, pulse pounding. The question raised more uncomfortable looks.

"Well, Your Majesty, it was a little difficult _not_ to notice," said Anders. "You... made a show of yourself." He gestured to the open doorway.

The ice lining the castle had been warped into jagged icicles, forming a trail that lead from Elsa's hospital bed and down the hall towards her bedroom.

Elsa's cheeks reddened. "Did I hurt anyone?"

"Nothing serious," said Anders. "It just took five guards to feed you a sedative, that's all..."

Anna shot him a glare. "It's all fine," she told Elsa. "You can still control your powers, right? You were just... caught off guard."

Elsa nodded, then swept her arm through the air. The ice immediately smoothed.

"You seemed really happy yesterday..." Anna's voice trailed off. "What happened?"

Elsa tried to think back, but it was all a blur. All it did was make her head pound even harder. "I... I don't know."

"Is it possible you were anxious about the monster coming to kill us?" said Anders dryly.

Elsa shook her head. "It's gone for now, and I'll know if it ever returns..." She rubbed the sleep from her eyes. "How long was I out?"

"Almost a full twenty-four hours."

"_Twenty-four hours?_" Elsa sprang out of bed. "The Weaseltown trade was supposed to conclude today! We should have already finalized the- _A__gh!_" She would've crashed into the floor again if Anna hadn't caught her.

"Oh no you don't!" Anna gave a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "The doctors said no stress, and that means you get to spend all day in bed."

"But- But-" It was hard to form a counterargument when Elsa was so dizzy. She ended up letting Anna tuck her under the covers.

"I can represent you for the negotiations," said Anders, moving for the door. "I've read all your notes."

"No, no, just let me rest another minute," said Elsa. "I can do it. I don't want the Duke or my council to think I'm some frail, bedridden girl-"

"_But you are!_"

The outburst hung in the air for a solid minute. Elsa looked about like she'd been slapped, and Anna looked dangerously close to punching Anders's head off. When no one replied, Anders stormed out the room.

"I'd better follow him," said Olaf. "Anders loves having me around when he's got important work to do. Get better soon, Elsa!" He gave her a warm hug and then scurried out the door after his bestest friend.

This left Elsa in the bed, Anna kneeling over her, and Fritz hiding in the corner.

"Don't listen to Anders." Anna put a hand on Elsa arm. "He's just a grouchy old man. You're... You're fine." She glanced away. "This was just a one-time thing... because you're stressed about the wight and stuff, that's all..."

"I'm going to be alright, Anna," said Elsa quietly.

"Yeah, yeah, I know you will, I just..." Anna let out a sniff. "Don't scare me like that again, okay?"

Elsa put on a smile. "I promise."

* * *

Fritz had been punched in the face by rebels, slept in the adjacent room to where a co-worker was murdered, and endured awkward social situations, but nothing – _nothing_ – compared to the sheer unleaded terror of watching Elsa's panic attack. It'd been scarier than reindeer, and Fritz had never thought he'd say that about anything. The time spent waiting for Elsa to awaken had been the absolute worst twenty-four hours of Fritz's life. Countless people had gone in and out of the hospital ward, checking on their queen's condition, but Fritz had been the only non-sister to stay at her side the entire time. Her every heavy breath had sent him into a panic.

And so it'd come as a huge relief to see Elsa finally open her eyes, hug her sister, and overall not be dead. Unfortunately, while this ordeal may have reaffirmed Fritz's undying devotion to his frosty mistress, it hadn't left him any less cowardly. Fritz had ended up watching everyone else express their relief at Elsa's recovery while he hid in the corner.

Fritz would have been fine with this, but there was one problem, and it wore pigtails. Anna spotted him hiding at the far edge of the infirmary, then shot him a sly look.

"Gee, Elsa, you look really thirsty!" she said with exaggerated concern. "I'd better go get you some water."

Elsa lifted her head off the pillow to give Anna a look. "I can make as much frozen water as I want."

"Yeah, well, maybe you'd like some liquid water for once." Anna made for the exit. "Hope you don't mind being all alone with Fritz for a while. Bye!" The door closed behind her.

Fritz blinked, disarmed. Honestly, in all the excitement, he'd nearly forgotten about this whole "the insane princess knows your horrible secret" situation. But then Fritz realized Elsa's eyes were fixed on him, and he snapped to attention.

"I'm really glad you're alive!" Fritz gave himself a mental kick. "_Okay_, I mean! I'm really glad you're _okay_. Your life was never in any, uh..."

Elsa returned her head to the pillow, her eyes moving away from him.

_Your window of opportunity__'__s closing!_ hollered Fritz's brain.

"Queen Elsa, wait!" The eyes came back. "I, uh, well..." Fritz took a deep breath, steadying himself.

This was it. "Seeing you in pain like that... it made me realize-"

"Why hello, my tiny friend!" A huge man emerged from behind a bed-curtain to give Fritz a slap on the back.

Fritz had never screamed so hard in his life.

* * *

Needless to say, Anna wasn't fetching any water. She was sitting on her bed, giggling to herself, watching the clock, and trying to judge how much time she ought to wait before returning to the infirmary. If she returned too soon, she'd intrude on an intimate moment. If she returned too late, she'd miss all the good stuff.

But she wasn't expecting Fritz to sprint into her room, covered in sweat. "You never told me Samson was alive!" he shrieked.

Anna looked bewildered. "Who?"

Fritz sighed. "The big guy with the-"

"Oh! You mean the gorgeous one!"

Fritz was a minute away from strangling something. "Yes. Him."

"Yeah, it turns out all that blood was actually the wight's. Samson got him with his spear before he was knocked out." Anna gave an apologetic shrug. "Sorry, I guess we forgot to tell you in all the chaos. Why, what does that have to do with anything?"

"How am I supposed to compete with _Samson?_" groaned Fritz. "I mean, I never wanted the guy to get murdered, but he wants to date Elsa, too, so I hate him."

Anna rolled her eyes. "Well, yeah, him and all the other men on the staff."

Fritz's face was horror incarnate. "_All the other men?_"

"Don't have kittens. It's not the same as how you feel, right? These guys only like Elsa for her looks. You like her as a person, right?"

"Well, I don't _only_ like Elsa for her looks..."

Anna swatted his head.

"_I mean y__es_, I like her as a person."

"Then you've got nothing to worry about from Samson," said Anna firmly.

Fritz nodded, but he wasn't as reassured as Anna seemed to think. He'd love to believe appearance had no bearing on relationships. It was just hard to ignore the fact that ninety percent of Samson's body mass was muscle, whereas Fritz was pushing maybe a solid two.

"Okay, but... confessing might be a bad idea anyways." Fritz's eyes met the floor. "I mean, Elsa's got all this heavy stuff going on in her life – being the queen, dealing with her powers, this wight thing... Why would she stop to care about me?"

"Are you kidding?" scoffed Anna. "All this stuff she's going through is exactly _why_ you need to confess to her. I mean, even if she turns you down – and I'm not gonna lie, that's not exactly outside the realm of possibility – When Elsa sees you sincerely like her, it'll make her feel better about herself. Let's face it, Elsa's self-esteem isn't doing as great as it could be."

"So... you think by telling her I like her, I can help Elsa?" This gave Fritz pause. Isn't that what he'd wanted all along, really? In fact, wasn't this exactly what he'd been thinking when Elsa hadn't been using her powers? Back then, Fritz had gotten cold feet and aborted the plan in favor of putting himself in an ice cream-induced stupor, but now... if Elsa was having panic attacks, she needed Fritz more than ever.

"Okay, okay, I'll do it! It's just..." Fritz faltered. "I won't know what to say. I'm gonna sound like an idiot."

Anna pondered this for moment. "Hey, remember when we were roleplaying, right before we did the... thing?"

"You mean the thing we promised never to speak of again?"

"Yeah, that's the one."

"What about it?"

"Remember what you said then?" asked Anna. "Just... say it again to the real Elsa this time. You'll do fine."

Fritz nodded. "Okay, okay, I'm ready... I'm gonna do it." He turned towards the doorway, but his feet remained motionless.

A minute passed.

"You know what? I'll do it tomorrow. Elsa probably needs more time to rest." Fritz ran back to the foot of Anna's bed.

"Fritz." Anna gave him a stern look. "I really think you should go through with this. I mean, from what I've heard, the way you feel towards Elsa... I don't think it's just a silly crush. Fritz, do you _love_ her?"

No squirming his way out this time. Fritz steadied himself, then said, "Yes."

"Then that's all that matters. Now go, and don't worry about Samson or anyone else, okay?"

"Yeah, okay." Fritz finally convinced his feet to take him out the door, but not before turning back to say, "Hey, Anna... Thanks."

"No problem." Anna flashed him a smile. "I'm rooting for you."

And with that, Fritz went to meet his destiny. This time, for sure, nothing random or zany was going to interrupt!

* * *

Despite the palace physicians' protests, Elsa had dragged herself out of bed and made for her bedroom, where she'd hurriedly tidied up her appearance. Now the Elsa looking back at her in the ice-mirror was totally normal – eyeshadow, braided hair, and ice-dress in place – but her reflection seemed... emptier somehow. Elsa couldn't put her finger on it, and thinking about it worsened her headache.

She was about to leave when a scrawny boy entered the room. "Your Majesty!" Fritz's voice was quivering even more than usual. "I thought you'd be resting."

"I've rested enough," said Elsa. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm late for a meeting."

"Yeah... Yeah, okay." At first, Fritz obediently stood aside. But then he suddenly said, "Queen Elsa, wait!"

She paused, then gave him a curious frown.

"There's something I need to tell you," he began. "Before I came to the palace, I was just a-"

"I'm sorry, but I need to go." Elsa gave him a patient smile. "I shouldn't be long, though." She glanced at the clock. "How about I meet you back here in an hour? Then I promise you'll have my full attention."

Fritz looked like he'd won the lottery. "Okay, an hour. Got it!"

And with that, Elsa proceeded down the hall, wondering to herself what Fritz could possibly have to say. Elsa genuinely had no clue, bless her heart.

* * *

The council of advisors were kind of cranky. The Duke of Weaseltown was pretty cranky. Anders was extremely cranky. All of them at once, well... That was a whole new dimension of pure, unbridled crankiness. Everywhere the eye could see, there stood a grumpy old man with something important to say, and everyone else had better listen, doggone it!

"What I don't understand," said the Duke, "is how you can let her wear the crown when she can barely keep her sorcery contained. Today, she might have some small episode in her castle, but tomorrow, she could freeze Arendelle again, and who could stop her?"

"Oh, yes, let's hand the crown to Princess Anna, then," said Anders. "That'd be _much_ better for Arendelle's well-being."

"Please, please, I think the cause of the queen's episode is clear," said an advisor. "It has nothing to do with magic – It's obviously yet another case of female hysteria. And the best cure for that is a good-"

"Hug?" Olaf suddenly emerged from his hiding place under the table.

The Duke of Weaseltown's spectacles popped right off his head. "_W__hat on __G__od's green earth is that __THING__?_"

"That 'thing' is Olaf," said Anders, kneeling down to pick up the snowman like an overgrown baby. "Don't worry. Despite his horrific exterior, he's actually quite harmless."

"Did the queen make that?" spat the Duke. "Nobody told me she could make snow-monsters! That's an abomination against nature! It's a-"

He was interrupted by the sound of a feminine voice clearing its throat. The Duke spun around to find Elsa standing in the council chamber entrance.

"Olaf is harmless," she said tightly.

"Is it dangerous?" asked the Duke.

"He's made of _snow_," said Anders.

Elsa nodded to him. "Anders, take Olaf away, please."

"Hi, Elsa!" Olaf cheerfully waved a stick-arm.

Elsa put on her "school teacher" voice. "Olaf, please don't interrupt council meetings again."

"I was trying to help."

"We'll have to manage without you somehow," Anders said as he carried him out.

The Duke stared at them as they left, his jaw dangling open. Anyone would need a moment after learning there are talking snowmen running around in the world.

"You can be on your way, too," Elsa told the Duke, "as soon as we finalize the document. I apologize for my absence. How far along are we?"

"All we need now is your signature," said an advisor.

Elsa seated herself on her icy throne, where she was handed the parchment, a quill, and an inkwell. Elsa had gotten the quill in the ink and was hovering her hand above the paper when the Duke decided it was a great time to open his mouth.

"I'm afraid I won't be able to give the rest of the Weselton the most complementary report of Arendelle. I must admit, I'm disappointed to see sorcery is still so prominent. I had thought, after thawing Arendelle, your curse was contained."

The tip of the quill stayed suspended above the signature line. A single, tiny drop of ink splashed onto the parchment.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" snorted the Duke. "Is the trade treaty not to your satisfaction? Do you see some kind of mistake?"

"Yes, there is a mistake." Elsa dropped the quill. "My magic isn't a curse. I enjoy having it. I wouldn't remove it given the option. I find your treatment of the subject offensive."

Every last advisor flinched like they'd heard a gunshot.

"Are you joking?" the Duke scoffed. "The entire reason I'm even here right now is because of your curse!"

Elsa's hands were trembling. "What do you mean?"

"Oh please, Arendelle hasn't had a drought this severe in hundreds of years," said the Duke. "Your eternal winter poisoned the land. I'm sorry, I'd thought it was self-evident."

"My powers can't do that."

"How do you know what they can't do? A minute ago, I didn't think you could bring snow to life." The Duke threw his hands in the air. "I mean, all that magic over such a wide area... Anything could have happened. Frankly, you're lucky you didn't kill anyb-"

He was cut off by the sound of hands slamming against the table. The next instant, the trade agreement between Arendelle and Weaseltown became a big, rectangular hunk of ice.

"Your Majesty-" an advisor tried to say.

"_We have no further need of your services, Duke of Weaseltown_," said the Snow Queen. "_Allow some of our abominations against nature to escort you to your boat_."

Purely on impulse, the Duke tried to say, "Wesel..." But he lost the enthusiasm when the queen threw her hands upwards, causing two hulking, humanoid piles of snow to materialize at her sides.

The creatures resembled Elsa's other snow-monster, only smaller. Of course, they were still head-and-shoulders above the average person, which made them about four times as tall as the Duke. They also sported the same quill-like coat of retractable icicles, complete with matching sets of icicle teeth and claws. The only real difference was that they each had one arm asymmetrically larger than the other, one having a larger right and the other a larger left.

Upon formation, the snowmen let out simultaneous, feral roars. The Duke replied with a quiet whimper.

"What on earth is going on in... here?" Anders and Olaf returned just in time to see the snowmen carry the Duke out by the seat of his pants.

The two of them stood, gaping.

"Oh boy, more little brothers!" cheered Olaf.

"Oh boy, a war with Weaseltown," said Anders. "If you'll excuse me, I'm off to go shoot myself in the head now to spare myself the trouble of starving to death in the drought."

* * *

If you've learned anything about Fritz by now, you'll know one hour was plenty of time for him to end up huddled in the corner of his bedroom, bawling like an infant.

_Look at you, you pathetic loser_, said his brain. _You remember why you kissed Anna, don't you? Because you knew it was the closest you're ever gonna get to the real deal!_

This had been the longest hour of Fritz's entire life. He'd tried to pass the time by preparing himself so that when he confessed to the love of his life, everything would be perfect. But this was also _Fritz_, and Fritz and complicated activities mixed like vinegar and baking soda. The water had been cold in the staff chambers showers. The men's room had been clean out of soap and cologne. The kitchens had likewise been clean out of chocolate, so Fritz had been forced to grab a plate of caramel. _Caramel!_ You're not allowed to like chocolate and caramel at the same time! Elsa probably hated caramel! And if Fritz supplied her with it, Elsa would hate Fritz by association!

At that point, Fritz nerves went totally out of control, and long story short, he ended up with a uniform covered in caramel. That hadn't sparked the crying, though. No, that'd come about at the very end of this chain of events, when he removed his hat and finally lay eyes on his haircut in the mirror. So here Fritz was, sobbing hysterically. A quick glance at the clock told him he had twenty minutes until doomsday.

"...Hello?"

That was when Fritz heard the squeak of a door, and a head of brunette hair poked its way into the room.

"Oh, sorry, wrong room!" Charlotte yelped, blushing profusely. "I didn't mean to..." Her eyes fell on him. "What's wrong?"

Fritz buried his head in his hands. "You'll laugh at me."

"What? No, I won't, I swear!" Charlotte entered the bedroom, shutting the door behind her. "You can tell me. Maybe I could... help...?"

"I..." Fritz sniffed loudly. "I'm supposed to meet someone soon. It's a... a girl I like... but... Look at me, I'm a mess!"

"You're not a mess!" Charlotte immediately ran to his side. "I think y- I mean, I'm sure whoever she is will think you look cute."

"But my uniform is ruined!"

"That's just a tiny stain... I do laundry all the time, I can get it out quickly."

"And my haircut is the worst!"

"I can cut hair, too. I bet I could clean it up for you."

"R-Really?" Fritz wiped his eyes. "You'd do that for me?"

"Yes, of course!" Charlotte instantly replied. "I mean..." She cleared her throat. "Yeah, I have nothing better to be doing..."

They ended up with three minutes to spare. It was cutting it close, and Fritz's hair was a bit shorter than he'd have liked, but Charlotte at least trumped Anna's ungodly hair-cutting skills. By the time Fritz stepped out the door, he actually felt somewhere north of completely worthless.

"I'd better get going," Fritz said as he hurried down the hallway. "Thanks, Charlotte!"

"You're welcome!" she called after him. Charlotte watched Fritz disappear out of sight. "I hope you like her a lot," she added quietly.

* * *

Fritz stormed into Elsa's bedroom, but she was nowhere in sight. Looked like he'd made it there early. No pressure, no pressure, he told himself. He was gonna confess his love, and even if she said no, it'd help Elsa's self-esteem, so... no matter what she said, everything was gonna be fine.

At least, that's what Fritz told himself about two seconds before the bony, black fingers sprang out from behind him, wrapping themselves around his mouth, muffling his screams...


	31. Killed

Every wrinkled old man in the council chamber sat slack-jawed, gaping at the woman in the icy throne.

"_What__?_" demanded Elsa.

"Nothing, nothing," said the ex-head advisor, his teeth chattering. "It's just, Your Majesty, in light of the, uh, direction this meeting took, are we dismissed?"

"_Very well_."

You wouldn't have thought so many elderly people could clear out of a room so quickly. A minute later, the only people left were Anders and Olaf at the edge of the table.

"There had better be an _incredibly _good reason you did that," said Anders.

"_The Duke insulted our sorcery._" Elsa rose to her feet. "_We will no longer tolerate it._"

Anders snorted. "Splendid. Should _I_ tell the people of Arendelle we're all starving to death because you got your feelings hurt, or did _you_ want to?"

Before Elsa could reply, she felt a tug at her dress and glanced downwards.

"Have you named my new twin brothers yet?" asked an enthused Olaf. "We could call them Mini-Marshmallows! Are they living here at the castle with us? Shouldn't you give them personal flurries so they don't melt? Ooh, ooh, they could share mine! We'll be flurry-buddies!"

The instant her eyes fell on him, the image of little girls building a lumpy snowman in the ballroom seared through Elsa's mind, and the world came back into focus. "What-" She brought a hand to her forehead. "What have I done?"

"By my count, you've ended a multinational trade treaty that was the only viable solution to the drought-induced food shortage whilst simultaneously confirming the fears of an extremely magic-phobic head of state," Anders readily replied. "Oh, and you terrorized all your advisors."

Elsa hung her head. "You don't suppose it's too late to apologize?"

* * *

It was _way_ too late to apologize. When he'd spotted Elsa approaching his ship from the harbor, the Duke of Weaseltown had screamed his head off until his captain set sail. Now Elsa, Anders, and Olaf were standing at the end of the dock, watching Weaseltown's ship vanish over the horizon.

"Well, I don't know about you guys, but I've been having a _lot_ of fun today," beamed Olaf.

Elsa buried her face in her hands. "I ruined everything. And to think, _I_ punished _Anna_ for attacking him." She turned to Anders. "What do I do?"

"First things first, I'd deal with _those_." He pointed to the pair of goliath snowmen approaching them.

"H-Hello," Elsa began, flustered. "I'm Queen Elsa. I made you."

The snowmen traded glances. Then, one of them leaned in to sniff Elsa like a big dog. "El... sa..."

"That's right." She gave it a pat on the head. "Not too talkative? You must take after Marshmallow."

"Hi, I'm Olaf, and I like warm hugs!" Olaf raised his head off his body for a better view of his siblings. "Ooh, ooh, I've got great names for you guys! Can I name them, Elsa? Can I, can I, can I?"

"Yes, Olaf," chuckled Elsa.

"Alright! You're Cloud." Olaf pointed to the one with the larger left shoulder. "And you're Cottonball." He pointed to the right-shouldered one. "See, because those are fluffy and white like marshmallows."

"Thank you, the subtleties had escaped us." Anders turned to Elsa. "Your Majesty, I can't help but notice these snowmen seem a smidge more... _feral_ than Olaf."

"What? Oh, right." Elsa gave them a stern glare. "Retract your claws. We're in polite company."

Cloud and Cottonball obediently sucked their icicles back into their bodies, leaving them much cuddlier. They bowed their heads, ashamed.

"You have an older brother on the North Mountain." As she spoke, Elsa waved her hand, spawning a pair of flurries above their heads identical to Olaf's, only larger. "Marshmallow's been living in my Ice Palace, but he's all alone. Would you like to stay with him?"

The snowmen nodded.

"How much do they understand, exactly?" asked Anders. "They're already intelligent as soon as you make them, aren't they? They're not infants."

"I'm not sure." Elsa looked thoughtful. "I first made Olaf as a child, so he acts childlike. Marshmallow and these two were made when I was being defensive, so they're brawnier. They're still newborn, though. Look at them – They seem so confused."

It was true. The snowmen were taking in their surroundings with nearly blank faces.

Anders let out a weary sigh. "Your Majesty, as I understood it, you made Olaf and Marshmallow by accident when your emotions were high, but that was also _before_ you could control your magic. Did you make these two on accident or on purpose?"

Elsa shifted in place. "It's... hard to tell the difference sometimes."

"If your powers are activating in response to your emotional state and not your conscious state, I have to question how much control you really have."

Elsa failed to meet his eyes.

"Cloud? Cottonball?" At her words, the snowmen looked down at their creator. "I'm _very_ glad to have brought you into this world. I love you." She leaned in to kiss each of them on the nose – or rather, the flat stretch of snow between their eyes and mouth. The snowmen's faces remained mostly blank, but there may have been a slight shift to more peaceful expressions.

"Yes, this is all very heartwarming," said Anders, glancing at his watch, "but you might want to regroup the council and start brainstorming alternative drought-solutions. People are going to be completely out of food in another week or so."

"Wait!" Elsa's eyes fell on the watch face. "What time is it?"

"Half-past twelve."

"Oh no, I was supposed to meet Fritz ages ago!"

"That scrawny boy?" Anders's eyes narrowed. "Why?"

"No idea, but it seemed important. Watch the snowmen." Elsa dashed off towards the castle.

Anders was left standing at the dock with a trio of snowmen.

"If I didn't know any better," he said dryly, "I'd say that boy's been harboring _unwholesome thoughts_ about the queen."

"That _would_ explain why he had Anna dress up as Elsa before kissing her," said Olaf.

* * *

Anna had been reading sappy romance novels as a sort of good luck ritual for Fritz when Elsa entered her bedroom.

"Elsa?" she frowned, shutting her copy of _Affair in Andalasia_. "Shouldn't you be with F- I mean, resting in the infirmary?"

"Have you seen Fritz anywhere?" asked Elsa. "I was supposed to meet him in my room, but I lost track of time, and now he's not there. He wasn't in his room in the staff chambers, either."

Anna groaned internally. Fritz was no doubt hiding on the other side of the castle, breathing into a paper bag.

"I'll help you look for him," she sighed, hopping out of bed. "He's gotta be around here somewhere."

The problem was, Fritz had basically spent his life at the palace following the royal sisters around. He didn't really frequent any places on his own, meaning the girls were forced to check locations at random. Anna even thought to check the kitchens, but Fritz wasn't pigging out on ice cream this time.

"Well, I'm fresh out of ideas," Anna said as they wandered down the hall aimlessly.

"It's so odd." Elsa's brow creased. "Fritz has never gone missing before. Anna, has he been acting... _strangely_ to you?"

Oh, the temptation was too much. A big, goofy grin spread across Anna's face. "Why?" she smirked. "What did he say?"

"Nothing yet," said Elsa, "but ever since we hired him, he's been so... _antsy_. None of the other guards are like that."

Anna felt like a shaken soda bottle, and any minute now she'd blow the cork out. "Haven't you ever wondered why?"

"Well, Fritz is a lot younger than most of the other guards. He's like a little boy – timid and shy about everything. Honestly, Fritz isn't the most qualified bodyguard – He was hired by the Admiral, who wasn't exactly supportive of me, but... I haven't had the heart to fire him."

That was a good sign. That was a _very _good sign! "Oh, really?" grinned Anna. "So you'd say you're _attached_ to Fritz?"

"I feel bad for him. He clearly doesn't have any self-confidence, and, well, he's been trying his hardest." Elsa halted their march to gaze at her feet. "I'm sorry I never told you this before, Anna, but... remember those nightmares I've been having? Sometimes, when I have them, I use my powers in my sleep, like what happened yesterday."

"Really?" Anna's face filled with concern.

"It happened Fritz's first day on the job, and he nearly got frozen trying to wake me." Elsa closed her eyes. "He's done his best to guard me after that, but he's always so _jumpy_. He's scared of me. It's the only explanation."

Whoa, that was _way_ worse than thinking he liked her! That tore it, Anna was telling. "He's not scared of you, Elsa," she laughed. "Have you seriously not figured it out yet? Fritz is-"

Right on cue, Anna was interrupted by a bloodcurdling scream.

"That came from the dining hall!" Elsa rushed down the hallway, the subject all but gone from her mind.

* * *

The moment the girls opened the door, Gerda pushed past them, shrieking her head off. With lunchtime over, the dining hall was totally vacant... save for two people seated at the main table. One was Fritz, who wasn't seated at the table so much as sprawled across it, head resting on a plate, eyes were wide and glassy. The second was the wight, sitting in a chair, hood back to reveal his putrid face, skeletal hands holding a knife and fork.

"_Bonjour_, Queen Elsa," he said cheerily. "You're just in time for dinner."

Elsa's heart had kicked into overdrive. It felt like her entire body was one big, cramped muscle.

"What's wrong?" frowned the wight. "Cat got your tongue? Oh, wait, I see the problem. I _stormed_ into your _home_ and took your _things_, didn't I? That was _rude_ of me, _wasn't_ _it__?_" He prodded Fritz with his fork.

"You, dear Elsa, have been a very stupid little girl. You think you can invade my home without even the guts to kill me, and then expect to come back here and be _safe__?_ Did you think I couldn't stay hidden from a few _birds__?_" The wight leaned back and propped his feet on Fritz's side, revealing toes as black as his fingers. "Maybe you thought you'd scared me away, but oh no, poor Elsa, poor sweet, sweet Elsa... all you've done is stir the hornet's nest."

The inside of Elsa's head _felt_ like a hornet's nest. But, at the very least, her first action was clear: "Anna, _run__!_"

Anna was a moment away from obeying when the wight called out, "Actually, Anna, I think you ought to stay put. For Fritz's sake." He dropped the silverware and put a hand over his victim's neck. The contact sent Fritz's entire body spasming. Anna froze mid-sprint.

"I don't know where they come from, my Elsa. All these people who think they love you. So many little liars. But don't worry. I'm here to solve all your problems. I will _fix_ you, Elsa, one liar at a time." The wight chuckled to himself. "This boy is lucky," he added, squeezing Fritz's neck. "His own cowardice saved him – He fainted at the sight of me. The unconscious ones don't make me hungry. But he _is_ still a liar, so I'll have to persevere..." The grip tightened.

"Release him _now._" A cold wind rocked the dining hall. "If you hurt him, this will end _very_ badly for you."

The wight just smiled. "Oh, well, why didn't you say so? Here, catch!"

The next instant, Fritz was flung bodily through the air. Elsa caught him, but she stumbled backwards, disoriented. Then she heard a scream and spun her head around the room.

Elsa was now alone with Fritz. She dropped him and ran into the hall in time to see a gray blur round the corner with Anna in tow.

_Anna is dead. Anna is dead._

The icy wind swirled around her, and shot Elsa down the hall like a bullet, sending furniture flying.

* * *

Life was crazy. One minute you were obsessing over your sister's dating life, and the next you were kidnapped by a monster.

The thing that'd grabbed Anna was definitely the wight. With its skin all blue and gangrenous, there was no mistaking it for anything but the undead. Anna socked it as hard as she could in the head, but it didn't drop her. For something so tall and skinny, it was a lot tougher than it looked. The wight dragged Anna down the hall, one hand around her waist, the other used for sprinting like a big monkey.

Anna was out of her mind with fear, but that only made her mouth run faster. "What _are_ you?" she asked, kicking and squirming as hard as she could. "What do you want with Elsa?"

The wight ignored her. He took her past a crowd of shocked staff members, past the ice-covered suits of armor, making a bee-line for the spiral staircase.

"You touch me and just watch Elsa beat the snot out of you!" Anna sounded a lot more confident than she felt. "You'd better hope you're hiding another magic sword somewhere in all that ugly- _Rck_!"

A bony, black hand clamped over her mouth. The skin contact sent a violent shiver over Anna's entire body. Her muscles to seized up like she'd been electrocuted.

"Do you have _any idea_ how much I hate you?" As he spoke, the wight dragged Anna to the top of the stairs with inhuman speed. "I waited _years___.__ Everything was going _perfectly___.__ This land was _freezing._And then it all gets undone because of one _stupid_, _annoying_ little girl!"

He slammed her head against the railing. Next thing she knew, Anna was seeing stars.

"You, Anna," said the wight, "are the biggest liar of them all. Elsa never cared about anyone else. It was _you_. I don't know how you did it, but you convinced Elsa to hold her ice in and return to locking herself away in your castle, living her life among _mortals_ like she's one of them. Like they would _ever_ accept her the way I do."

Anna's head was spinning, but she felt those ice-cold hands wrap around her waist, and suddeny, Anna was hoisted into the air.

"What's it going to take, Anna? What's it going to take to make her accept the _truth_, that _everything_ you've made her believe is _wrong__?_ The rebellion? _Emma__?_ No, somehow, in spite of it all, you manage to keep feeding your lies to her."

Anna was coming to the realization that she couldn't move, alongside the worse realization that even if she could, it wouldn't be much help anymore.

"I promised myself I wouldn't kill you..." The wight moved his hands from her waist to her arms, leaving Anna dangling over the spiral's center. "...but you make it _very tempting_."

* * *

The wind deposited Elsa at the foot of the stairs, where she looked up to find Anna hanging over the railing.

Elsa raised her arms. "I will make you _regret _hurting her."

"You've got nothing to worry about, my dear," the wight called back down. "I can't simply kill your precious sister the normal way. No, no, no, that won't do. It's like a puzzle. How do I kill Anna whilst simultaneously making you understand she's a liar? First, I thought letting Adrian do it would be enough. Just imagine..." A dreamy look overtook his eyes. "He kills her, you discover his motivation, and bing, bang, boom, you realize you _deserved_ to lose Anna because you're such a _murderer_. It would be so _perfect_."

The look vanished. "But I never should have trusted a mortal to kill her properly. So then I had another idea. Since you're so skilled at killing little girls now, I thought I'd let you kill Anna yourself."

Elsa's face remained stoic, her eyes fixed on her sister.

"Really, that's what ought to have happened years ago. I don't know why Anna here is so resistant to freezing to death."

Elsa's eyebrows creased. "I thought you weren't going to kill her?"

"We're not that high up," shrugged the wight. "You'd be surprised what you can live through."

He released his grip.

They were children again, and Anna was tumbling through the air towards the cold, hard ground, and Elsa instantly fired a bolt of magic, and it flew towards Anna's face... and then swerved around her, forming a huge mound of snow that cushioned her landing. Anna slid downhill, coming to a stop at Elsa's feet.

"Wow, that was fun!" she said, her paralysis fading. "Let's do it again!"

The wight made a disappointed hissing noise. But the next moment, he was blown back by a freezing gust.

"Did you think I'd freeze her head again?" Elsa's hair and cape billowed behind her. "I'm not eight anymore. I can control my powers. I don't know who you are or why you want to hurt me, but the only thing you've accomplished so far is making me angry."

"Ooh, I _like _this side of you," grinned the wight. "Let's see how you fight when you're not sneaking into my home and catching me off guard."

Elsa raised her hands to eye level. "Get behind me, Anna."

Anna obeyed. "Kick his butt for me!"

"With pleasure."

"No, Elsa," said the wight. "The pleasure's all _mine__!_"

On the last word, he pounced, diving through the spiral. Elsa fired bolt after bolt of magic, but the wight contorted in the air, dodging everything perfectly. The instant he hit the ground, he lunged, but Elsa threw up a wall of ice at the last second and he smacked into it. Next Elsa dropped the wall and sent a wave of frost at him, but the wight dodged with such speed, he was practically teleporting. Elsa was toying with the idea of enclosing them in an ice-barricade to impede his movement, but the wight moved so blindingly fast that the plan was only half-formed when he pounced at Anna.

And then, of course, the plan had to be dropped in favor of shielding her sister. Elsa immediately formed a wall around her, but this time the wight didn't hit it. He feinted, instead tackling Elsa with all his might. Elsa felt the air pushing out her lungs, then heard Anna's scream of horror. In the span of seconds, Elsa was tumbling through the air, and she raised her head just in time to see a window growing larger and larger. Elsa impulsively covered her entire body in a thin layer of ice, bracing herself.

The next second, she was skidding through the snow, grass, and dirt of the palace garden until she finally came to a halt, lying on her back. Elsa dissolved her ice-coating for the sake of not suffocating herself. With her head exposed, Elsa could see that wight had landed on top of her, but she only got one good mouthful of air before the bony, black fingers wrung her neck.

"It's going to be a shame to tarnish your beauty." The wight's grip tightened. "But I'll make _you_ a wight, too, if that's what it takes."

A strange sensation was bubbling inside Elsa. It's not often that one tries to suck in air but can't. First came dizziness, then spots in her vision, then... sleepiness.

"I bet you won't care if she's your sister once you start feeling _hungry_..." The singsong voice sounded a million miles away.

A numbness had built up in Elsa's throat where the fingers gripped it. It crept down into her lungs, her stomach, her legs... With a pang, Elsa realized she couldn't see... or hear, or touch, or taste, or smell... But there was one thing she _could_ feel... because Elsa had one sense that didn't care how much oxygen her brain was getting.

A stream of ice burst from Elsa's fingertips, sending the wight flying off of her so she could frantically suck in a lungful of air.

Thanks to his violent collision with the dirt, the wight was much slower to return to his feet than normal, giving Elsa plenty of time to freeze him. The force of her icy blast slammed him against the palace's exterior, right beside the window he'd broken. The wight's limbs were pinned against the stone by a thick layer of ice.

"Wow." During the struggle, Anna had apparently climbed through the shattered window. She went to examine the trapped creature, carefully avoiding the glass shards in the grass. "I wish we'd known the wight was gonna be such a pushover. Would've spared us a lotta stress."

"It's over," said Elsa, standing beside Anna. "Now why don't you explain yourself? Who are you?"

"You idiot!" hissed the wight. "You think stopping _me_ will make you safe? _It's_ coming! It hates our kind! It won't rest until every last one of us has been exterminated like rats!"

"What's 'It?'" demanded Elsa.

"It preys on people like us!" said the wight. "If you want to survive, you need me! I'm the surgeon trying to cut out the disease, but you keep squirming!"

"_Need you__?_" spat Elsa. "All you've done is kill people!"

"Exactly!" the wight snapped. "That's _exactly_ what this is about! That's what it's _always_ been about!"

Elsa's fists were trembling, and not from fear. "_What_ is?"

"Killing!" said the wight. "Killing is your _purpose._ It's what you're _for._"

Her heartbeat was speeding up again. "That's not true."

The wight grinned. "Ever notice the effort it takes you _not_ to kill, my dear, sweet Elsa? You haven't even done it on purpose yet, but killing is your natural state. It happens whether you want it to or not, doesn't it?"

_A little girl lying on the ballroom floor, a white streak in her hair... Men in her Ice Palace, icicles at their throats..._

"That's why I'm not overly concerned with killing Anna myself. Now that I've had a good look around your bedroom, I see that you're on the fast track to doing that all on your own... though I couldn't resist spicing things up a bit. It'll make a lovely surprise..." The wight chuckled. It wasn't taunting. He was genuinely amused.

_A man in a lake, the water pushing him downwards..._

"We're the same, you and I. The difference is, I don't pretend I'm anything but a monster. But I know you've got a skeleton hiding inside you, Elsa. Want proof? Just _look in the mirror_."

_A little girl sitting beneath an oak tree on a hill, listening to music in the distance..._

"Will you shut up?" Anna was having none of this. She turned to Elsa. "Please don't tell me you believe this creep, Elsa. He knows we beat him. He's just trying to freak you out."

"All I need is for you to embrace it, my Elsa," the wight continued, ignoring her. "I need you to love me_. _Then It won't be a threat to us. Nothing will. Don't worry, my sweet Elsa, I assure you the _second_ kill is always _much_ easier."

"I..." Elsa tried to move her mouth, but it was so dry. "...will _never_ kill."

The wight let out another chuckle. "It pains me to see you conceal your true nature like this, Elsa. How can someone so powerful be locked away for so long? Nobody should've been able to tell you what to do, even as a child. But instead, all you did was cower like a caged animal for years because you were _so_ terrified of hurting these fragile little mortals."

Blood was pounding in her ears. "You don't know _anything_ about that."

"_No! Don't touch me!_" The wight put on a high-pitched voice. "_Please, I don't want to hurt you!_" He had another fit of laughter.

She could feel it. Elsa could _feel_ the ice at her fingertips, _begging_ for release.

"I think you've said enough," she said quietly.

"Yeah! You're our prisoner now!" taunted Anna, standing herself right next to him. "Maybe we'll ship you off to our prison-island so the Admiral and Hans can have a new cell-mate."

The wight just laughed harder. "I was so mad at myself for deciding not to kill you, Anna, but I've finally seen the silver lining. There are _so many_ things I can do to you that _don't_ involve killing." He licked his lips, letting a fair amount of drool drip down his chin. "There are war veterans who survive losing a limb or two, aren't there?" He started muttering to himself. "Yes, yes, I like this idea... And this way, I'll still have something to eat- _Urk_."

"Urk" was the sound the wight made as several large icicles drove through him.

* * *

"_Come quickly!_" The door burst open, revealing the queen. Her eyes were wide and fearful, and her chest was rapidly heaving. "_It's Elsa!_"

The king immediately released Anna and rose to his feet.

"Papa, Papa, what's-?"

"Stay here, Anna!"

The king slammed the door behind him and dashed down the hall. He and the queen reached Elsa's room almost immediately.

The king was taken aback by the sight before him. There was Princess Elsa, on her knees in the center of her bedroom, one hand un-gloved, weeping quietly. And before her, slumped over on the carpet, was a stiff cat, its fur covered in frost.

"Elsa..." The king was at a loss for words. "_Why?_" he finally managed. "You _know_ you're dangerous!"

Elsa weakly raised her head. Her answer was barely audible.

"Mary told me to."


	32. Elsa Is Mine

The king and queen stood in the doorway, paralyzed, their eyes fixed on their daughter.

"Mary was right," said Elsa quietly. "Everything I touch dies."

"Elsa-" the queen tried to say, but she was cut short by a howling wind.

In an instant, the bedroom transformed into the eye of a snowstorm with snowflakes and hail swirling around their maker at breakneck speed. And almost as loud as the wind was Elsa's hysterical sobs. There's a certain way little girls cry. It's a distinct sound, full of self-pity and outrage at the unfairness of the world. Elsa was not making this sound. Her cry was more agonized. It was the way adults cry.

"Elsa!" the king shouted into the storm. "You're letting your emotions control you! _You_ have to control _them__!_" But Elsa was shrieking so much, she didn't even seem conscious of her surroundings anymore.

"What on earth is going on?" The noise was enough to bring a tired old butler running down the hall.

"It's Elsa! She's out of control!" the queen said frantically. She nearly rushed through the doorway into the blizzard, but the king grabbed her arm.

"What are you doing?" he snapped. "Do you want to end up like the cat?"

"She needs her parents!" said the queen.

"She needs a _sedative__!_" The king turned to Anders. "Go. Now!"

Anders rushed to the supply closet, where he retrieved a bottle of colorless liquid and a cloth. "I'd _really_ hoped we'd never have to use this," he sighed, handing them over.

The king gravely uncapped the bottle and dampened the rag.

"Be careful," the queen pleaded. The king gave her a quick kiss on the lips.

Then he charged into the storm.

Every inch of exposed skin _burned_. The distance to Elsa was only a few steps, but it took a long while to reach her. By the time the chloroform touched her face, the rag was completely stiff. It took another several minutes for the effect to kick in and Elsa to collapse into her father's arms, finally quieting. And it was another minute after _that_ that the snowstorm subsided.

As soon as the winds slowed, Anders and the queen burst into the bedroom.

"What do we do?" The queen threw her arms around her unconscious daughter.

The king's face was stone. "We bring her back to the trolls."

After that, silence fell over the room. The king had put on an air of certainty, but truthfully, he felt disquieted. For just a second, in the snowstorm, he thought he'd made out a humanoid shape behind Elsa.

* * *

The sisters stood, chests heaving, before the monster nailed to the wall. Elsa took a tentative step towards Anna.

"I'm okay, I'm okay," Anna said faintly. "That was just _really gross_, that's all." Bamboozled. That was the word for how Anna felt. She sat there, covered in flecks of wight guts, waiting for her brain to catch up to rest of her body.

The icicles vanished, causing the wight's remains to fall into Elsa's outstretched hands.

"Your Majesty!" At this point, the guards finally came running. Anna wasn't sure if they'd taken their sweet time to notice the commotion or if they'd just thought it best not to get involved while Elsa's powers were firing left and right.

"Hey, guys." Anna gave a weak smile. "I might need a shower."

"What happened?" asked a guard.

"It's dead." As she spoke, Elsa's ice crept over the wight's corpse, encasing it. "Take a boat a few miles out to sea, tie this to something heavy, and throw it overboard." She handed the body to a distinctly unenthused guard.

"Y-You don't want to burn it, ma'am?" he stammered.

Elsa shook her head. "I've checked my father's old books on magic – The ones he found the trolls from. They say the undead might survive fire, but they're powerless in water. It's associated with holiness."

"Yeah," spoke up Anna. "Like how vampires can't cross rivers. Good thinking." But then a thought struck her. "Wait, don't you wanna take the wight to Grand Pabbie first?"

"I don't want anything more to do with it," said Elsa breathlessly. "I don't care what it was or where it came from. If it had any magic, it would've used it by now." She turned back to her guards. "End the lockdown. Open the gates. The wight's dead."

Don't get her wrong, Anna was thrilled the stupid wight was dead, but she felt strangely unfulfilled. Anna didn't know what she'd been expecting, though. It wasn't like Detective Brand was gonna drop by to hand them a trophy. But what really weirded Anna out was how quickly things returned to business as usual. The guards rushed Fritz to the infirmary, one of the groundskeepers drew the short straw and mopped up the wight's, uh, mess, and the sisters went to the bathing chambers.

Anna used up two dozen bars of soap, and she still didn't feel particularly clean.

Soon enough, the sisters were in Elsa's bedroom. Their hair was fresh and shiny, they were in elegant nightgowns, and they finally didn't smell like blood. Elsa, of course, could just magically erase her stinky ice-dress and make a fresh one, but Anna's outfit had to be burned, which sucked because it was, like, one of her top hundred favorite dresses she owned.

"Get some shut-eye." Anna tucked the understandably exhausted Elsa into bed. "You were _supposed_ to be avoiding stress, and I'm pretty sure battling a monster qualifies."

"In the morning, we need to visit the trolls," said Elsa. "Hopefully they can explain a few things."

"Yeah, and we can bring Kristoff, too." Anna brightened at the prospect. "Sounds like a plan. Now, good night." She made for the door. "Man, that wight wasn't so scary after all. I mean, I didn't even puke when its guts spilled on me."

Elsa sat up under the covers. "I'm sorry about that."

"It's not your fault," shrugged Anna. "How were you supposed to know the wight would turn into a piñata?"

"It was the same as with Adrian," said Elsa. "I had him. I could have taken him prisoner... and instead..."

"_Elsa_." Anna sighed and returned to the foot of the bed. She put her hand over Elsa's. "You saved me from a man-eating monster. You are the _best sister ever_, and that's all there is to it. Okay?"

Elsa nodded slowly, but then her eyes fell on the snowwoman in the center of the room. "What he said about me..."

"I don't know what the wight's deal was, exactly," cut in Anna, "but from what I pieced together from all the craziness he spouted, he wanted to freeze Arendelle again, and he thought if he killed me in a horrible way, you'd go nuts and lose control of your powers. That doesn't exactly sound like a trustworthy source for telling you your 'purpose.'"

"I know," said Elsa. "But, Anna... I've spent all my life terrified of hurting people, but when people like him attack me, I feel like..." She took a breath. "...like I _want_ to hurt them."

"The wight was a monster, not a person," said Anna. "It doesn't count. I mean, he was already undead, right? He looked like he'd been in the ground a while." She shuddered at the memory.

"What about Adrian? What about when Hans and his men stormed my Ice Palace?"

"I don't blame you for getting mad when people try to kill you!" scoffed Anna. "That's totally normal. Heck, I tore the Duke a new one just because I laid eyes on the little snot again. Does that make punching people _my_ purpose?"

Elsa allowed herself a smile. "I don't know, you _are_ pretty good at it."

Anna laughed. "You know what I think? When he grabbed me, the wight kept going on about how I was 'lying' to you, and how he didn't know how I 'convinced you' to hold in your ice. I think he didn't know how to thaw a frozen heart."

Elsa looked blank. "What do you mean?"

"Well, there's something you're supposed to _have_ to thaw a frozen heart, and an icky monster wouldn't understand it. _Hmm_, what was it again?" Anna feigned thoughtfulness. "Angst will thaw? No, that's not right... Wait, I remember! _Tickles_ will thaw a frozen heart!"

"Wha- _Anna__!_"

Without warning, Anna jammed her fingers up Elsa's armpits and refused to remove them until Elsa was bowled over under the covers, howling hysterically. When Anna finally relented, Elsa took a moment to catch her breath, then said, "I love you."

"Love you, too," grinned Anna, returning to the doorway. "See you in the morning."

As she entered her own bedroom, Anna felt on top of the world. Today had been insane, and it was still daylight – though to be fair, daylight lasted a while in Arendelle. But the bottom line was, the wight was dead.

Everything was going to be fine.

* * *

Mary listened to the conversation intently. At this angle, Elsa wasn't casting a reflection, but that didn't mean Mary wasn't there. Of course, Mary was actually a flat sheet of ice, but some people don't need eyes or ears to observe the world around them.

"I love you."

"Love you, too."

At the words, anger welled up inside Mary. She could feel Elsa's subconscious fighting back.

"See you in the morning." Mary's gaze followed the red-haired girl until she crossed the doorway out of sight.

_Worst enemy. Kill her._

There were the voices again. Ever since the wight had visited her, they'd been growing louder and louder in Mary's mind.

_Kill her. Cut her. She's a liar. Kill Anna. Kill Anna. Kill Anna!_

While not manifested as Elsa's reflection, Mary was unable to physically laugh, but she could still feel the lightness of humor inside herself. This was funny. Poor Elsa. Even the voice in her head had voices in its head.

After a while, Mary sensed her host drifting off to sleep. Perfect. She was more vulnerable when she was asleep.

* * *

For the first night in weeks, Elsa fell asleep without a wight looming over her head. When her stray thoughts eventually solidified into dreams, they were of her fondest memories. Building a snowman with her sister... Skating in the icy courtyard... Watching her frozen sister return to life and finally realizing that all along, all she'd needed to control her powers was _love_. It was suddenly so simple. Arendelle thawed, everyone ended up on one of the harbor's boats, Elsa gave her sister the biggest hug of her life... and then she spotted Prince Hans.

Liar. Murderer. _M__onster_.

Her ice was out immediately, skewering his body like a ragdoll full of pins. The next thing she knew, Anna was shrieking, "_My sister is NOT a murderer__!_"

The word echoed. _Murderer... murderer..._

And the next moment, Elsa was standing before a house at the edge of a fjord. Across from her was a hill with an oak tree growing out the top. And sitting at the base of the tree was a little girl – couldn't be older than eight – turned towards the city in the distance. Elsa could hear the faint sound of music wafting in over the hills.

"No," she breathed.

A cloud of white erupted from the city and spread over the hilltops, making its way towards them as if it were leeching all the color out of the world. Elsa tried to make it stop – Hadn't she been controlling her powers just a minute ago? How had she done it, again? – but the snow wouldn't halt. Could never halt.

"_N__o__!_" She ran for it, but as Elsa neared the hill, she could see the white piling higher and higher. By the time she reached her, it was too late. Elsa cradled the stiff child in her arms. It was a red-haired girl, her hair in tiny little pigtails.

Adrian was standing there. "Murderer."

"No, please, I'm sorry-"

His fingers trembled... then blackened.

"It's your _purpose_," he said. "It's what you're _for_." The rot crawled up his body until his face looked like freezer-burned meat. "It happens whether you want it to or not, doesn't it?"

"I'm sorry!" Elsa buried her hands in her eyes. "I'm sorry, I'm-"

Adrian lunged...

"I'm sorry!"

* * *

...and then Elsa was standing in her bedroom, lifting her hands.

"Sorry, Emma..."

The ice erupted out of her, spreading over the entire castle, and it felt _so good_. For one glorious moment, it was like Elsa was back on the North Mountain, releasing it all for the first time.

But then it all feltwrong.

Emma. Emma Emma Emma _Emma_. She couldn't shake the thought. Elsa's eyes searched for comfort, but they only fell on the snowwoman with handprints on its chest. _Emma_.

Elsa's ice trailed over her dresser, crawling over the empty mirror frame... and filling it. Her reflection, dressed in a scarlet nightgown, cocked its head, and it struck Elsa that she herself was _not_ cocking her head.

"_I knew it._" The reflection spoke in Elsa's voice. "_I knew you still loved me_."

"Who are you?" asked Elsa.

The mirror laughed. "_You know who I am. You __made__ me._"

Elsa touched her palm to the glass, and the reflection responded in turn. "Your name is... Mary."

Mary smiled. "_Yes. You know everything about me. And I know everything about you. I know the little secrets you've been harboring, Elsa... I know how you want to climb the ice-tower you just added to the castle, then look off the balcony, and think about throwing yourself off_..."

Elsa drew back, bowing her head.

"_You're ashamed_," said Mary. "_But I can help you, Elsa. I can make all the pain go away. I'm your reflection, Elsa. I will only ever show you the truth about yourself, the truth you're scared to accept. I will never lie to you. I love you_."

Elsa felt strange. A second ago, the thought of Emma had gripped her mind and refused to let go, but now... being in Mary's presence filled Elsa with peace.

"I love you, too."

* * *

Her eyes snapped opened, but it took Elsa a moment to realize she was awake. The landscape looked like another nightmare. The ice covering her bedroom had warped into jagged icicles, every one of them pointed inwards towards their creator and glowing blood red.

The more pressing issue, however, was Elsa's breathing. Her lungs were on fire, and every time she took a ragged breath, more icicles broke out on the walls. Her head was pounding, too, and the instant Elsa tried to climb to her feet, she collapsed onto the floor. Elsa was forced to crawl. She desperately moved towards the snowwoman in the center of the room... and then right past it, stopping at her dresser. Elsa pulled herself up until she was at eye level with her reflection.

"Help me..." Elsa managed to say. "Help me..."

Somehow, her reflection changed_._ It gazed at Elsa, a pleased smile across its lips. "_I knew you still loved me_."

* * *

A reindeer the size of a dog snored loudly. Neither it nor the blond toddler cuddled against it on the forest floor had been awoken by the sound of hooves.

A palace horse stood at the center of the Valley of the Living Rock. Its riders had dismounted to display the sleeping girl in their arms to the troll at the head of the crowd.

"...a snowstorm in the bedroom," the king was saying. "She's never done anything like it!"

"Her powers are growing far faster than I'd expected." Grand Pabbie placed a stony palm on Elsa's forehead, then closed his eyes. "I sense a great unrest in her mind."

The queen made a sharp intake of breath. "Are you saying she's lost control _completely__?_"

"I'm not sure," Grand Pabbie sighed. "There's so much about your daughter I don't understand. My people were never gifted with cryomancy. If you want me to fix this... I'll need to enter Elsa's mind."

"What do you mean?" asked the king.

"When I healed your younger daughter, I only viewed her mind from the outside," said Grand Pabbie. "But Elsa's case is more complicated. I can't diagnose the issue until I've examined her psyche thoroughly. I'm going to enter a trance. You'll have to trust that I won't do any harm."

The king and queen traded glances.

"Do whatever it takes," said the king.

One light show later, Grand Pabbie was experiencing the bodiless sensation of traveling into another consciousness. The treeline vanished, and in its place stood a barren expanse of snow stretching in all directions. For a second, Pabbie merely stood and took in the landscape, doing his best to focus despite the dreamlike atmosphere.

Then the storm started. In an instant, his vision was filled by an unending downpour of wind and hail. That was odd. Usually, people's minds were only vivid enough to include color or sound, but Grand Pabbie was getting a clear sense of coldness from this one.

The turbulence was a sign of a great strain on Elsa's psyche, but that much had been obvious from the outside. Pabbie needed to dig deeper. He concentrated on that idea, causing a door to form before him. Pabbie battled the winds and grabbed the knob, opening it.

Crossing the gateway brought Grand Pabbie to another region. This place lacked a clear horizon – It was pure white, a total void.

"What is this?" he wondered aloud.

Then Pabbie froze. He could sense something directly behind him, and it nearly caused him to double over in shock. It was another consciousness within Elsa's own. A mind connected to hers, and yet distinct. And if this alien intellect was the source of Elsa's distress... it was most likely not friendly.

"Hi, I'm Olaf, and I like warm hugs!"

Grand Pabbie was as old as the earth, so it was seldom anything surprised him, but a lumpy snowman hugging him from behind with its twig arms was enough.

"Are you thinking _independently_ of the rest of this mind?" Pabbie gasped, stumbling backwards. "That's impossible! How could any sorceress construct even the _groundwork_ for sentient life at such a young age?"

Olaf stared at him blankly. "...Hi, I'm Olaf, and I like warm hugs!"

Grand Pabbie reached out to touch his face, though in this dream-state, he didn't feel completely solid. "You seem benevolent enough," Pabbie chuckled. "You're not causing Elsa's mental unrest, are you?"

"Uh... I don't _think_ so..." Olaf looked pensive. "Well, maybe... No, no, it definitely wasn't me. Probably. Ooh, maybe you should ask that guy!" He pointed across the white void.

Grand Pabbie's eyes followed the stick arm... and then widened.

The _thing_ before them could only be described as ice in the shape on a man, though its limbs were a few feet too long. Other than that, the creature was featureless. It didn't even have a face – There was nothing on its head but smooth ice.

The creature was kneeled over on the "ground" of the white void, struggling to stand. Its limbs seemed to be melted, the water spilling off into the whiteness.

Grand Pabbie had gone pale (which, for trolls, is a light gray).

Despite lacking eyes, the ice-creature turned the front of its head Pabbie's way. Its voice was hardly more than a whisper: "_El... sa... is... mine._"

"El saismine?" frowned Olaf. "What does that mean?"

"_Not... sis... ter's_," the creature said. "_Not... pa... rents'... Mine_."

"Oh lord," said Pabbie. "I have to-"

"Play with it?" guessed Olaf.

"-kill it."

"Oh." Olaf looked somber. "That doesn't seem as polite."

Grand Pabbie raised his hands, causing images to flash through the void. At first they were of a cat hissing, squirming, and growing still, but then Pabbie sent a wave of blue magic that replaced these with images of Elsa reading a book, growing tired, and falling asleep. Grand Pabbie nodded contently, his work finished. The ice-creature let out a cry of pain before melting completely.

"Okay, I'll fess up," said Olaf. "I've had no clue what's been going on at all this entire time."

"Of course you haven't." Suddenly, Grand Pabbie was growing less opaque. "You're not an actual person yet. You're only a half-formed idea in the back of Elsa's head. In a second, you won't remember any of this."

"What? Don't be silly! I could never forget-"

Olaf was standing by himself in the white void. He turned towards a random patch of blank space.

"Hi, I'm Olaf, and I like warm hugs!"

* * *

"Elsa, what are you doing?"

Anna stood at the top of the ice-tower stairs. Her heart was racing, and the only thought her mind could process was that Elsa was standing _way_ too close to the balcony's railing.

"Elsa? _Elsa, don't-!_"

Anna's eyes shot open, and she realized she was in bed. It was just a stupid dream... except for the part about her heart racing.

Anna could tell she wouldn't be getting back to sleep anytime soon. Obviously, the problem was that she hadn't hugged her sister enough. Anna climbed out of the covers and crept through the hall, then stuck her head into Elsa's bedroom. She wasn't gonna disrupt Elsa's beauty sleep or anything. She just needed to prove to her subconscious that Elsa was still alive, that was all.

But when Anna crossed the door frame, what she found instead was a room covered in glowing red icicles. "_Elsa?_"

"Anna!" Her sister looked at her with wide, fearful eyes. Anna immediately ran towards her, but her path was blocked by ice.

"_I'm fine. Don't worry about me_," said Elsa, her posture instantly straightening. "_Right now, I need to be alone_."

Anna took another gander at the blood red icicles. "You don't... _look_ fine."

"_I __said__ I need to be __alone__._"

A gust of freezing wind blasted Anna back into the hallway. She went tumbling head over heels until she slammed into the back wall. "What the- _Elsa__?_" Anna was back on her feet in a flash, but the next instant, Elsa's doorway was sealed by something made of ice.

Anna stared at the closed door Elsa had placed between them.

"Nope," said Anna. "_Nope!_"

Her eyes landed on one of the ice-covered suits of armor lining the halls, which was holding an ice-covered halberd.

One second later, Anna was standing in her sister's bedroom, halberd held aloft, the remains of an ice-door at her feet. Now she could finally cross that off her bucket list!

"What's going on?" Anna navigated around the icicles until she reached Elsa's side. As Anna neared her, Elsa let out a groan, then dropped her rigid posture to collapse into Anna's arms.

"Anna..." Elsa said between heavy breaths. "Help me..."

That's when Anna heard the laughing. It wasn't a cruel, maniacal laugh. It was a totally normal laugh. In fact, it was _Elsa's_ laugh. But it wasn't coming from Elsa.

It was coming from the mirror.

"_Hello, Anna_," said Elsa's reflection, which, unlike the real Elsa, was standing tall and looking pleased with itself. "_You can meddle all you want now – __Y__ou're too late. Elsa's already surrendered herself to me. She's _mine_._"

Anna turned to her sister. "What _is_ this thing?"

Elsa's voice was barely audible. "It's a... snowman."


	33. Do You Want to Kill an Evil Snowman?

Every man, woman, and troll in the valley watched in total silence. Grand Pabbie was standing stone still, eyes shut, with the unconscious princess in his arms. After what felt like an eternity, his eyes opened.

"It's done," he said. "She's healed."

The queen finally exhaled. "Thank God!"

"What happened, exactly?" asked the king.

Grand Pabbie solemnly returned Elsa to her mother's arms. "Your daughter can do more than make ice and snow, apparently. She can also create separate consciousnesses within her mind."

The queen's brow creased. "I don't understand. What does that mean?"

"It means she is _very_ gifted at sorcery," said Grand Pabbie. "Most likely, she hasn't done it on purpose. Like the rest of her powers, Elsa cannot control when it happens. Were her magic more developed, she could even grant the consciousnesses autonomy in bodies of their own."

"You mean her powers gave her multiple personalities?" said an alarmed king.

Grand Pabbie shook his head. "Not exactly. These are _lesser_ minds. As their creator, Elsa has absolute dominance over them. The more egotistical sorcerers would call these magical constructs their servants."

"Is that what Mary is?" asked the queen. "Elsa mentioned Mary right before she lost control. That was her imaginary friend when Anna was a baby."

Grand Pabbie pondered this for a moment. "She could be projecting them onto childish comforts, but the minds I sensed were created recently. One was partially developed, and the other was in only the earliest stages."

"And what does this have to do with Elsa losing control of her powers?" frowned the king.

"That's the part I find... _disturbing_." Grand Pabbie waved his hands, conjuring a magical visual aid. "One of the minds was harmless-" His lights glowed blue and took the shape of a short, misshapen snowman. "-but the other was exerting its will over Elsa, challenging its creator's place in the hierarchy." The light burned red and formed into a tall, slender creature with long, melted limbs. "I fear this mental strain is responsible for Elsa's sudden loss of control. She created this aggressive consciousness as a response to the death of your pet, so, by erasing those memories, I was also able to erase _it_."

"So it's gone forever now?" said the king. "This 'other mind' can't hurt her anymore?"

Grand Pabbie nodded. "Elsa now believes she fell asleep reading a book. I've placed a light enchantment on her to ensure she doesn't wake until you return home. So long as you make her believe the animal is still alive, she will not lose control of her powers or recreate the vindictive mind. Also, _do not_ inform Elsa of her new ability. If she's _aware_ she can create life, the chances of her inadvertently doing it increase tenfold."

The queen scowled, holding her daughter closer. "That's your solution? _More_ secrets and lies? But that's what caused this in the first place!"

Grand Pabbie met her eyes. "What do you mean?"

"Why would Elsa need her imaginary friend again if she wasn't feeling lonely?" said the queen. "She created this 'other mind' because we've locked her away and forbidden her from seeing her sister!"

"She created Mary because she _killed!_" The queen winced at Grand Pabbie's outburst. "You should count yourself lucky it was just a cat. If Elsa had killed a _person_, it would take _far_ more than my memory tricks to fix things!"

The queen was trembling. Her husband put a hand on her shoulder. "We've been trying to teach Elsa to control her emotions," he said, "but the isolation is having a negative effect on _both_ our children. Are you certain there's no other way?"

Grand Pabbie let out a long, heavy sigh. "I don't know. But I can't advise you to risk your children's lives for the sake of their happiness. This ordeal means Elsa's powers are even more dangerous than I'd thought. Continue encouraging her to use them as seldom as possible, and make certain Elsa never again harms a soul. Clearly, it would be too great a strain on her."

"_Fine_." The queen pushed past her husband and sifted through the crowd of trolls until she reached their horse. She slung herself onto the saddle, then gently placed the sleeping Elsa on her lap.

Grand Pabbie watched the king follow suit. He gazed at the couple sadly. "I'm sorry I don't have a better solution," he said. "But I promise you this: If you do as I say, Mary will never harm your daughter again."

* * *

Mary's laughter hadn't stopped yet, and now Anna was rethinking her assessment on whether or not it was cruel and maniacal. She held Elsa closer and stepped backwards towards the door.

"So," said Anna. "You're a snowman- sorry, snowwoman. A really flat, rectangular snowwoman. What are you doing to Elsa?"

"_She thought it was headaches_," laughed the mirror. "_Nightmares. Panic attacks. But it was _me_. Poor Elsa never suspected her beloved Mary might be burrowing into her head like a worm. I didn't _allow_ her to suspect. She forgot me when I wanted her to forget_."

Anna looked down at Elsa, whose fingernails were digging into her arm. "What's going on, Elsa?" she asked frantically. "What do I do?" But Elsa's only response was more ragged breathing.

"_Save your breath, little mortal_," smirked Mary. "_Elsa is _mine_. She doesn't need someone who'll lie to her, pretending things are fine when they aren't. Only I tell her the truth. The world is a cruel place, full of people who hate her, who fear her... Elsa can trust nobody but herself... and _me_. __Only __I__ care for Elsa. She__ loves _me."

"Is that why she's doubled over in agony right now?" said Anna flatly.

Mary laughed again. "_You'd better run while you can, Anna. Elsa doesn't love you anymore. _I'm_ her sister now_."

No sooner were the words out of her mouth than a halberd soared through the air. The sharp end landed right in Mary's face, sending shards of ice flying. The halberd clattered to the floor, landing in a heap of ice-glass. The sisters stood in the doorway for a moment, Elsa gasping incessantly.

"Wow, it worked," said a surprised Anna. "Great. She was _annoying_." She turned to Elsa. "You okay?"

"Anna... run..." Elsa got out. "I can't... control myself..." As she spoke, more red icicles erupted from the ceiling.

"I'm not leaving you!" said Anna. "Do you need a doctor? Or- Or Grand Pabbie?"

But then the laughter started up again.

"Oh _no_," Anna groaned.

The ice-glass was wiggling all on its own. The next instant, it shot into the air. At first it swirled like a tornado, but then the ice began to morph. The shards connected themselves like a jigsaw puzzle, stretching and smoothing in the gaps. The end result was a humanoid shape, only with limbs a bit too long and a blank, featureless face.

The ice-creature stepped forward, going out of its way to kick something nearby. Emma the snowwoman exploded into shapeless powder.

Anna practically howled in fury.

"You should be more careful, Anna." Mary's voice was no longer a copy of Elsa's. Now it sounded like... like a different woman's. A relative's, maybe. "One of these days, that reckless attitude of yours is going to get you... _killed_." The tips of Mary's arms finished forming. They didn't end in hands. They ended in icicles.

Extremely sharp icicles.

* * *

Kristoff could barely contain a grin. Sven was currently hooked up to his sled outside while Kristoff heaved in a couple boxes of his things. Right now, he was dumping his ice-cutting supplies in his new room in the staff chambers before coming back for another load. He couldn't wait to see the look on Anna's face when she learned he'd be living with them!

Just as he crossed the staircase to the bedchambers, Kristoff spotted her dashing towards him.

"Surpri-!"

And then right past him.

Something was up. If the palace wasn't on lockdown anymore, why did Anna look so terrified, and why the heck was she carrying Elsa in her arms?

"Anna, what's wrong?" Kristoff called after her.

Anna glanced back long enough to scream, "_Evil__snooooooowmaaaaaaan__!_"

Okay, Kristoff was seriously confused. But then an ice-creature charged after her down the hallway, and he pieced things together.

Lesson learned: Never try to surprise Anna. She will outdo you every time.

* * *

Anna ran as fast as her legs would carry her, but her progress was being hindered.

"_Someone_ needs to cut back on the chocolate," she told the package she was hauling. Elsa's only response was more uneven breaths and a squeak of pain. Anna got the unsettling impression she was no longer aware of her surroundings.

Don't get her wrong, Anna was skilled at running indoors. She pushed past dumbfounded staff members and useless guards with ease. But carrying a grown woman in her arms while being pursued by an inhumanly fast snow-monster was a bad combination, and after a minute Anna's foot hit the snow-carpet in _just_ the wrong way, sending her and Elsa tumbling to the ground.

Mary was upon them in an instant, icicle-arm raised high, and then-

_Clang._

-she was knocked off her feet by a sudden ice-pick to the side. Kristoff gave the creature another several good whacks, sending chunks of ice flying in all directions. He finally slowed around the time Mary's head came off.

Kristoff stood over the fallen ice-monster, pick held aloft. "I still love you, by the way."

"That's wonderful, but maybe now's not the best time." Anna returned to her feet and gestured to Mary, who was still wriggling. "You're stronger. Trade me."

"Wha-?"

Anna suddenly tossed Elsa, forcing him to drop his pick to catch her. Anna grabbed it and gave Mary a couple more whacks to the chest.

"I'm sorry, maybe I'm just slow," said Kristoff, "but _what_ _the_ _heck_ is going on?"

"Evil snowman possessed Elsa's brain," Anna readily answered. "Quick, how do you kill a snowman? We can go ahead and rule out impaling."

"Um, uh-" Put on the spot, the best Kristoff could come up with was, "Maybe it really likes heat and it'll melt itself in the sun?"

Just then, Mary sprang to its feet. The only thing the attacks had done was leave it with more jagged edges.

"_Aaaaaaaaaaaaaagh-__!_"

So now Anna and Kristoff were being pursued by a _freakishly_ _deformed_ snow-creature.

"No, don't go that way!" Anna called as Kristoff neared an icy-staircase. "That's to the ice-tower! It's a dead end!"

That's when an idea struck Kristoff. "No, I've got a plan. Trust me!" He charged straight up the stairs, Elsa in tow.

"Okay," called Anna, following suit, "but if you get us killed, I don't think I'll want to date you anymore!"

They reached the top of the tower while the broken snow-monster was still lumbering up the stairs. Kristoff went straight for the ice-prism in the center of the balcony, dropping Elsa on the floor.

"Is that a sword?" asked Anna. "How long has that been there?"

"Explain later, pick now!"

"_What__?_"

Kristoff yanked the ice-pick out of Anna's hands and set to work hammering the prism. Unfortunately, the sword was only halfway excavated when Mary reached the top.

"You might want to go a little faster, Kristoff!" yelled Anna.

"Hey, I've been cutting ice for years! I'm going as fast as I- _A__gh__!_"

Kristoff would have gotten an icicle to the face, except at that very instant, Anna grabbed the exposed hilt, and a distortion in the air caused every drop of ice in a wide radius to vanish. Mary stumbled back, knocked off balance by the sudden loss of a good third of her body mass. Now she was just a torso with half an arm and some spindly legs.

Kristoff put his hands to his face to reassure himself it was all there, then sighed in relief.

"_En_ _garde_, evil snowman!" Anna, meanwhile, held up her blue crystal sword, assuming a fighting stance – or, at least, the closet approximation to a fighting stance someone who'd only read about swords in books could achieve. She let out a battle cry and charged, waving the blade around like a feather duster. Luckily, being a magic sword, it didn't require much finesse to evaporate ice on contact.

Anna slammed the blade against the ground repeatedly, even cutting through some of the ice-tower floor just to make absolutely sure every last speck of Mary was gone. Then she stood, panting. "I... I did it!" Her face lit up. "_That was the awesomest thing I've ever done__!_"

"Great," said Kristoff, "now maybe we can-" He was cut off by Anna throwing her lips against his. The couple stayed like that, the sword still in Anna's hand, for several triumphant seconds.

Unfortunately, the moment was undercut by laughter. Anna unstuck her face from Kristoff's and jerked it around the room, but she couldn't pinpoint the source of the sound. That was weird – Mary's voice wasn't unique anymore. It was back to sounding the same as... _Dang it._

Elsa had risen to her feet, her shoulders shaking with laughter.

"I don't suppose you're just laughing because you're _really happy _we killed the evil snowman, are you?" gulped Anna.

A wide, thin smile crossed Elsa's face. "_Destroying that body won't do you any good anymore, Anna. I'm in _here." She tapped her forehead.

"_Anna, hand me the sword,_" Kristoff said in a harsh whisper. "_I'll knock her out and we can bring her to __Grand __Pabbie_."

"_What_?" Anna gaped at him like he was insane. "_You wanna hit Elsa so hard you knock her_ _unconscious_?"

"_Well, if you've got any better ideas, I'm all ears!_"

"_Maybe we can reason with her!_" Anna turned to her sister. "Um, hi, Mary. You said your name's Mary, right?"

Mary gave an amused smirk, which killed Anna because that was _Elsa's _smirk.

"So... you possessed my sister, huh?" She had no idea where she was going with this, but, being Anna, she kept on talking anyways. "Y'know, uh, we've got plenty of snowmen who _aren't_ evil, and they all love Elsa and get along just fine, and they never try to kill anybody_, _so, uh, why don't you un-possess Elsa, and she can give you a new body of your own so you can join the family?"

Mary scowled. "_Don't expect me to fall for your lies as easily as your sister. You want to bring me to the troll __shaman__ so he can erase me again! Do you know what it's like being erased_?"

"Um-"

"_It's __nothingness__!_" A freezing wind rocked the balcony. "_I'm never going back__!_ _Never__!_"

Anna stepped back, her sword shielding herself and Kristoff from the flying hail.

"_I control Elsa now!_" Mary swung her arms, then stumbled back in surprise when a bolt of frost shot out. She lost her balance and caught herself against the back wall, but the skin contact caused it to immediately thicken with twisted icicles.

"What's wrong?" taunted Anna, her sword catching the frost-bolt. "Can't control the magic? Let me help: It needs true love. _Oh_, _wait_, you're an evil jerk who possessed Elsa's brain! Guess you're outta luck."

"_I need time to adjust, that's all._" Mary instantly regained her composure like an embarrassed cat. "_In the meantime, why don't you acquaint yourself with my __siblings?_" She threw out her arms.

For a second, nothing happened.

"Uh..." Anna looked lost. "What's that supposed to-?"

A storm of snowbirds swooped out of the sky and flooded the balcony.

"Agh! What _are_ these things?!" Anna swung the ice-eating sword, evaporating birds left and right, but the creatures focused more on guarding their master than attacking. The snowbirds landed in a circle around Mary, their icy eyes fixed on Anna and Kristoff.

"Don't drop the sword, Anna," Kristoff said in the most reassuring voice he could muster. "Just... hold onto the sword, and they can't hurt us."

"_Kill them!_" spat Mary. A feral caw rang out throughout the flock. Every last bird was thrashing, twisting, and _growing_. Their wingspans doubled in size. The more pressing issue, though, was their ice-talons, which _also_ doubled in size.

The monster-birds darted forth all at once. Anna screamed and immediately dropped the sword.

"_Anna!_" Fortunately, Kristoff readily caught it.

"Sorry!" Anna gave an apologetic wince.

After the first wave of birds got destroyed, the rest seemed smart enough to fall back. Instead of outright attacking, they circled the balcony. Every few seconds, one would try and swoop at Anna, but Kristoff kept the sword close enough to protect her. They'd dissolved at least a dozen, but the couple's line of sight was still filled with snowbirds. Several of them even started speaking, their voices barely audible over the rustling of snow-feathers:

"_Worst enemy._ _Kill her."_

"_Cut her._"

"_She's a liar._"

"Okay, I take it back, Kristoff," said Anna. "You can knock her out now!"

"Alright, stay close to me!" Kristoff held up the sword and tried to charge, but Mary threw out her arms again.

* * *

Anders sat slouched in his favorite armchair, doing his best to hold onto the last tiny shreds of his sanity.

"Hey, Anders!" He felt a tug at his sleeve. "We've been talking, and Cloud and Cottonball think you should give _them_ piggyback rides, too. It's only fair."

Anders peered over at the trio of snowmen standing before him. Olaf and his new siblings were looking at him expectantly.

"I have a better idea," said Anders. "Let's play a game."

"Ooh! Ooh! I love games!" Olaf's face filled with joy, and his brothers seemed to copy his expression.

"It's called the 'quiet game,'" said Anders. "Whoever can sit very still and stay quiet the longest wins."

"_Yeah!_ I can do that! I'm _great_ at staying quiet!" yelled Olaf.

Anders glared at him. "The game's started already."

"Oh." Olaf clamped his sticks over his mouth.

Suddenly, Cloud and Cottonball let out alarmed grunts, then cocked their heads, as if they'd heard a noise off in the distance. They trudged out the library door, mystified.

"Where are they off to in such a hurry?" asked Anders.

"Ha! I win!" said Olaf.

* * *

Kristoff didn't make it three steps towards the possessed Elsa before a pair of bulky snowmen emerged from the staircase and placed themselves before him.

"Whoa!" Kristoff halted mid-charge.

Cloud and Cottonball seemed confused at first, but then they turned around and spotted their creator.

"_Kill them!_" yelled Mary.

The snowmen turned towards Anna and Kristoff.

"No, don't listen to her!" said Anna. "She's gone nuts! She-"

They both roared, bearing their icicles.

"_It's no use,_" said Mary. "_I control their minds now._"

Kristoff made the first move, de-clawing one of Cloud's hands with a swing of the sword. The monster shrieked and took another swipe with similar results. However, this also served to distract Kristoff long enough for Cottonball to lunge at Anna.

"_Anna__!_"

She ducked out of the way, grabbed the fallen ice-pick, and swung it at Cottonball's leg, but given the leg was made of soft snow and not ice, the attack barely left a dent.

As the couple struggled against the snowmen, the possessed Elsa stood by the stairs. She seemed occupied toying with her newfound powers. Mary conjured up an ice crystal, then morphed it into snow. A pleased smile crossed her face.

Meanwhile, Kristoff had managed to whittle Cloud down to nothing but a head and some stumps for limbs. With his snowman dealt with, Kristoff tried to run to Anna's aid, but the snowbirds formed a thick wall.

"Anna, trade me!" Out of desperation, Kristoff tossed his blade. It sailed through the air and landed by Anna's foot.

"Okay!" Simultaneously, Anna tossed him the pick. The handle clocked Kristoff right in the nose. "Oops. Sorry."

But the next instant, Cloud took another swing at her, and Anna had to grab the sword. Once again, it evaporated the ice mere seconds from turning her into a shish kebab. Cloud, like his brother, was left bodiless and harmless.

The snowbirds pulled back again, allowing Anna and Kristoff to regroup.

"Alright, alright," panted Kristoff. "I think that was the worst of-"

The words weren't even out of his mouth before a distressingly familiar roar reverberated across the tower.

"_Oh, did I forget to mention?_" A wicked smirk crossed Mary's – _Elsa's_ – lips. "_I called my older brother here __a while__ ago. Figured he was getting lonely up on the North Mountain. Looks like he __arrived__ just in time._"

As she spoke, a massive set of icicle-claws emerged over the side of the balcony, and then the most colossal snowmen yet pulled himself up over the side.

"Oh dear," said Anna.

Marshmallow peered around, confused, lingering at the edge of the balcony – At least he was too big to fit in the roofed overhanging.

"_Kill them!_" Mary once again yelled.

He looked downright hurt. "Elsa... wants to kill... Anna?"

"She's possessed!" Anna yelled up to him. "Quick, grab her!"

Marshmallow seemed like he might comply, but then Mary reached out her hands and closed them into fists. This caused Marshmallow's entire body to seize up. Then, he let out a roar far louder than the last two snowmen. A coating of icicles exploded out of his skin.

"Uh, Marshmallow...?" Kristoff slowly stepped backwards. "It's _us_, remember? Your friends?"

Marshmallow did not remember.

"_Kristoff__!_" Anna made a dramatic dive and sliced off the beast's legs, causing Marshmallow to topple over.

(_Not again! _thought Marshmallow.)

"I'm really, really sorry!" Anna told him. Marshmallow's only reply was a roar of displeasure.

"Okay, I think you get the idea by now!" Kristoff called out to Mary. "Our ice-sword can take everything you can throw at us. Now why don't you come quietly so we don't have to hurt-"

A jet stream of water shot past him, knocking the sword from Anna's hands.

"-you."

The crystal blade was swept up in the current and delivered to Mary's outstretched arms.

"_Making water wasn't so hard_," she gloated, examining her newly acquired weapon. "_Hmm, but I feel it leaving me already_." Even as she spoke, the droplets covering the floor turned to ice. "_I'll figure it out later. As __for__ now, though, I have some pests to dispose of_..."

Anna huddled closer to Kristoff. They could do nothing but watch as Mary sent a wave of ice their way. Anna impulsively closed her eyes... but a second later, when she failed to feel any bitter coldness blanket her body, she opened them.

The ice had gone directly around them, freezing nothing but air. Elsa stood before them, and her face no longer looked so smug. It looked horrified.

"Run!" Elsa yelled. "I can't hold it back much longer!"

"Yeah! Fight it!" Anna gave an encouraging fist-pump, but Elsa's hold only lasted a second. Her face returned to a sneer as quickly as it'd left.

"_Well, well, looks like your sister has some willpower left in her_," chuckled Mary. "_How __annoying__. Let's see if we can't fix that_." She waved her free hand, forming a crude ice-body beside her. It resembled Mary's slender body from earlier, only closer to Elsa in size and with more human-like hands. Mary placed the sword in one of these, closing the icy fingers around the hilt.

"What are you doing?" asked Anna.

Suddenly, Elsa groaned and clutched her head.

"_Elsa?_"

She blinked in surprise. "She... She let me go. Why would- _Ack_!"

Anna and Kristoff cried out in horror as the new ice-creature slammed Elsa against the tower wall.

"Here's a secret our dear departed friend the wight taught me," said Mary, her voice sounding unique once again. "These swords of his... They can drain _all_ the ice out... right... at... the _source_."

The crystal sword began to tremble and glow. Elsa gasped as her hands raised into the air all on their own... and shot out a massive amount of frost. The ice was sent straight into the sword like water pouring into a bucket. At first Elsa struggled as hard as she could, but within seconds her efforts grew weaker. The ice flew from her hands faster and faster, and the sword glowed brighter and brighter.

"And, you see, the sword doesn't have to hold the ice in, either. It can do _whatever I want_ with it." Mary's crude ice body was growing thinner, gaining shape, and growing more detailed. Snowy hair sprouted from her head into a braid. Her face gained a mouth, ears, a nose, and even eyes – complete with little specks of frost of varying thickness for irises and pupils. Distinct fingernails formed on her fingers, and a dark blue dress covered her clear ice-skin.

It was a perfectly detailed woman sculpted from ice and snow. And her face looked... Well, it looked a bit like Elsa's. Or their mother's. She could've passed for Elsa's and Anna's long-lost sister.

But Mary wasn't the only one changing. Elsa's skin was... well, it was gaining color. On any other human being on earth, it would actually look much healthier, but on Elsa, it just looked wrong. And it wasn't only her skin – Her hair was browning. Elsa gazed at Anna with wide, fearful eyes. The once striking blue irises were now a dull gray.

"Here, you can have this thing." Mary tossed her to Anna and Kristoff. Elsa landed between them, collapsing to the floor. "_I'm_ the Snow Queen now. All that's left in that body is a frail little girl. But that's the only part of Elsa you care about, isn't it?" She gave a cold laugh.

Anna knelt down to wrap her arms around Elsa, her chest heaving. "Elsa? _Elsa_, can you hear me?"

Elsa's eyes were wide open, but she didn't seem to be seeing anything. She opened her mouth and managed to make a soft gurgling noise.

"You mortals are pathetic," said Mary. "You're given the most powerful force this world has seen in thousands of years, and all you care about is the sack of meat it's trapped inside. I love the _real_ Elsa. She's right here." She raised a hand and formed a couple ice crystals in the air. "I have the ice now."

Mary tossed the sword, then re-froze it within another prism near the fallen Marshmallow.

"The wight thought my purpose was to end life, but he was only half-right. I can end life... but I can also create it. That doesn't make me a sorceress, you naïve humans." A wide grin crawled across her face. "That makes me a _goddess_. All I have to do is reinstate the eternal winter, and once everything is frozen, I can build a new world of my own design. A world of ice and snow."

Mary raised her hands.

"So now the only question is... who wants to die first?"


	34. Mind Over Matter

"You're back!" Anders nearly dropped his snow shovel in surprise when the monarchs entered Elsa's bedroom, a sleeping girl in the queen's arms. "Is she-"

"She's fine." The queen tucked Elsa under the bedcovers. "We'll explain in a minute. Right now, let's let Elsa sleep."

"Alright, alright." Anders gave her an apprehensive glance before moving for the doorway. "While you were gone, I took the liberty of disposing of the snow. And the cat."

"Good." The king shut the door behind them. "Elsa doesn't remember what happened anymore. She thinks she fell asleep reading. If we want her to not lose control again, we have to sell the illusion." He returned to a basket left on the carpet. There was a mew, and then a ball of brown fur poked its head out.

Anders stared at it like it was diseased. "I see. So are we going to chloroform and mind-wipe her _every_ time Elsa gets upset?"

"Anders, please, let us explain-" the queen tried to say.

"No, I understand," said Anders stiffly. "You can't risk anyone else freezing to death. Ends justify the means."

"Anders-"

But he was already walking away, instantly vanishing down the staircase. The queen looked like she might go after him, but the king took her hand in his.

"He'll understand in time," he said. "We have to be patient." The queen nodded slowly. Her face would've looked calm, but her eyes betrayed her. The king brought his other hand to her cheek. "Everything will work out in the end. I promise."

"I just can't stop thinking about this 'Mary.'" The queen's voice was hardly a whisper. "If the troll is right, Elsa made this 'other mind' _after_ she froze the cat, but... when we came in, Elsa said, 'Mary told me to. Mary was right. Everything I touch dies.'"

The king murmured her name and put his arms around her.

"Don't you see?" The queen was trembling again. "This 'other mind' didn't make her do it. She did it all on her own." She buried her face in his shoulder. "She was so lonely that she invented this _person_, and then her magic made it real. That's how her powers work... just like the gloves. Mind over matter. Mary _is_ Elsa. It's her _own_ thoughts." Here came the tears. "_And it's my fault_."

"That's not true."

"I _knew_ they'd been getting up in the middle of the night to play. I _let_ them! I thought it was cute. I never... I never thought..."

But the sobbing and consoling came to an abrupt halt at the sound of a creaking door. "Mama? Papa?"

"Anna, dear, could you wait in your room just a little while longer? We'll be with you in a minute."

"_Mrawr_."

"That's not our cat."

* * *

Anna was holding a brunette girl and crying. "_I'm sorry, Elsa... I'm so sorry..._"

Blocking the staircase was a woman of ice. She'd pass for a sculpture if she wasn't so flexible. Mary took a step towards the sisters, barely containing her glee.

"You stay away from her!" Anna shrieked. She had half a mind to try to slug Mary, but then Anna felt a hand on her shoulder.

"Anna, I..." Kristoff was at a loss for words. "Well, I guess I wanted to say I love you again." Anna didn't meet his eyes. She couldn't stand to see the defeat in them.

Anna let out a scream of frustration and shook Elsa as hard as she could. "Get _up_, Elsa. C'mon, move! You _have_ to move! Please, just... move..."

Elsa did not move. Anna couldn't stand to meet _her_ eyes, either, for a whole different reason.

"Didn't Grand Pabbie say something horrible would happen to Elsa if her powers were removed?" said Mary. "I thought she'd just die, but it looks like she's a vegetable. That's so much better! I bet you'd take care of her, too, wouldn't you, Anna? I might keep you alive just to see that. It'd be hilarious."

Anna wasn't listening. Right now, her entire world extended only to the girl in her arms. "Elsa... _Elsa, I'm sorry_... It's my fault..."

"Anna..." Kristoff said softly.

"I _knew_ she was acting weird, but I... I thought she was being a jerk. Being paranoid. I should've known... something was wrong..."

Mary's laughter intensified. "Are you _crying?_ You humans boggle my mind. When I'm creating new life from the ice and snow, there won't be tears from _any_ of them. My world will have no weakness. Nobody will ever be hurt."

Anna took her sister's hand in her own, but Elsa remained limp. "_Elsa... please..._"

The icy woman took a step forward. "Well, since you girls are going to serve as my entertainment, it looks like your boyfriend gets the honor of dying first."

Kristoff tensed and leaned in closer to Anna, clutching his ice-pick as if it could offer any protection.

"Hmm, decisions, decisions..." Mary held up her arms. "Should I freeze your head or your heart? Hmm, how about both?"

Kristoff closed his eyes, and, for a minute, the only sound in the tower was Anna's sobs.

But then the sobs stopped. This was likely from the shock Anna felt when fingers suddenly closed tightly around her hand. Anna inhaled in awe and locked eyes with her sister. Elsa's, while still a dull gray, were not blank and glassy. In fact, they weren't even sad or scared. They held total confidence.

"I'm not going anywhere," whispered Elsa. "_Never_."

Anna gave Elsa the biggest hug of her life, her tears switching from sorrow to joy. Even Kristoff joined in. Elsa smiled and gently pulled herself out of their grips. She rose to her feet.

Mary's icy eyes widened. "Wow, so you're not a _complete_ pushover after all."

Elsa stepped towards her.

"What's this?" said Mary. "Do I have a volunteer to die first?"

"No." Elsa raised a hand. "I'm going to fight you, Mary. And win."

* * *

She'd thought it would be the sudden increase in heat that would faze her the most, but, actually, it was the cold that did it. She'd always been aware that her natural body temperature was near-freezing, but it'd never bothered Elsa before. But now every rustle of her dress left Elsa shivering, and her feet burned from the contact with her icy high heels. At first the sheer shock had left Elsa paralyzed. The limitless frost that had crept at the ends of her fingertips her entire life, total mastery of the ice and snow, had been yanked out from under her in a heartbeat. It was like going blind. Elsa had been drowning.

And the sound of Anna's voice had pulled her to the surface.

Elsa looked around the tower, from the still-twitching remains of snowmen and snowbirds, to the legless Marshmallow slumped over the balcony, to the prism of ice housing the crystal sword, to the shocked Kristoff and Anna at her side, and, finally, to the icy woman blocking the stairs. Elsa could hardly believe it. Mary had taken the magic and abandoned Elsa's mind, tossing her aside like a bratty child tosses wrapping paper. Elsa hadn't even realized it before now, but she'd spent over a week under Mary's spell, and now she was free. It was like putting on glasses for the first time and discovering the world was never supposed to be fuzzy.

She finally understood what Mary _was_. Elsa remembered creating Mary, she remembered every horrible thought Mary had instilled her with, she even remembered _not_ remembering Mary between visits to the mirror. And Elsa remembered the incident with the Duke of Weaseltown. After he'd insulted her one too many times, Elsa had surrendered herself to Mary, just like this time, but then... she'd escaped. The puzzle piece had clicked into place. Elsa had taken one look at her fingertips, and she'd known exactly what to do.

The icy imitation stood across from the real Elsa. Mary's confidence hadn't vanished yet. She hadn't figured out what Elsa was up to.

"You're going to fight me?" Mary let out another chuckle. "I'll give you credit – You're braver than I'd thought. It's a pity you're much too late, little girl. You lost a long time ago. You're not the Snow Queen anymore. I am." Her fingertips crackled with magic. "You must barely be able to stand upright, let alone fight anyone. Of course, the old troll said you'd be comatose by now. Guess he was a liar. No different from everybody else, I suppose."

Elsa smirked. "Well, since you apparently have my memories, too, you must know what Grand Pabbie said right after that. Magic can never be _completely_ erased." She outstretched a pointer finger.

Mary caught sight of Elsa's finger... and then burst out laughing. The very tip of it, around the fingernail, was still pale. It stuck out from the rest of the peachy hand like Elsa had dipped it in white paint.

"So you managed to hold on to a tiny bit of magic," said Mary. "Good for you. Now, please, tell me, why would that miniscule amount of power you have left possibly make you think you have a chance against me?"

_Elsa's smirk was still there. "__Because you're not the only one who can call your snowmen to you." She waved her hand, just as Mary had done before, and a moment later, a snowwy head poked its way through the staircase __entrance._

_"Hey guys!" Olaf said brightly, waddling his way onto the balcony, a pleasantly oblivious smile on his face. "Did Cloud and Cottonball come this way?"_

Anna and Kristoff stared.

"Uh, no offense, Elsa," said Kristoff, "but if I could summon any snowman I wanted, Olaf wouldn't exactly be my first choice..."

Elsa smiled at them. "Wait for it."

Suddenly, Olaf's head did a one-eighty. His eyes landed on the icy woman standing before him. "Whoa. Hey, you're new." He bounced closer to her.

Mary stepped backwards. "_Stay away from me_."

"You're... You're a snowwoman!" realized Olaf. "I... have... a _sister__!_" His face overflowed with joy. "This is great! Elsa's got a sister, and Anna's got a sister, too, and they both think it's the bestest thing ever. I've always wanted one!" He bounced even closer.

Mary, for the record, had limitless power over the ice and snow. A dinky little snowman hardly posed a threat. One good ice-blast, and he'd be done for. But all she did was tremble and take ragged breaths.

"Hi, I'm Olaf, and I like warm-"

"_Stay away!_" yelled Mary. "_You're a liar! Nobody loves her! Nobody!_"

The slightest frown crossed Olaf's face. "Well, that's kind of a downer thing to say..." But the happiness returned instantly. "Y'know what you need...?"

Mary nearly tripped over herself, but she couldn't escape the stick-arms wrapping around her. "_No... nobody loves her... Nobody loves... me..._" Little trails of water were dripping down her eyes.

"Wow," said Anna, "That got really heartwarming all of a sudden."

Then the water burst out the ends of Mary's hands and feet like a fountain. The human-like features of her icy face were drooping and smoothing. It was like watching her transformation into an ice-woman in reverse. And all the while, Mary shrieked in horror.

"Nevermind," said Anna.

"Wait, what's going on?" asked Kristoff. "Why's Olaf melting her?"

Elsa walked over to the snowmen, kneeling down to examine the puddle Mary was slowly forming.

"Because they're opposites," she said. "He's everything she's not."

Olaf opened his eyes and spotted the pool of water where the subject of his hug had once been. "Wow, my hugs are warmer than I thought."

Anna charged at Elsa and gave her a hug of her own. "You did it! I mean, I never doubted you for a second, but still..." She ran a hand through Elsa's brunette hair. "What are we gonna do about _this__?_"

Elsa glanced back at the puddle. "I'm not sure what happens now, but Mary had my powers. All that magic has to be somewhere. It can't have dissa-"

The words weren't out of her mouth before the puddle shot into the air, solidifying into a rectangle. Elsa's reflection was giving her a death glare. And unlike the real Elsa, her skin and hair were still pale.

"Oh, _come on!_" groaned Anna. "How many more times are you gonna come back?"

"_That was very clever, little girl,_" said Mary. "_Using my brother to erase me. We're both connected to your mind, after all, so ordinarily his brainless optimism would be enough to drive me away. But you overlooked one detail._"

The entire tower shook, and the next instant, every inch of it smoothed and straightened. The walls, floor, and ceiling were growing more angular... Countless mirrors, each housing the same reflection.

"_I'm not connected to _only_ your mind anymore. The wight came to me. He made me _better."

The mirrors' reflections began to change.

"_We know your secret, Elsa. We know what you really are._"

Elsa's eyes swept the mirror-tower. She caught sight of countless images: Her parents staring at her, horrified. A little girl falling to the ballroom floor, a streak of white in her hair. A man drowning in a lake, his hands gripping a crystal sword. Men in the Ice Palace, one being pushed off the balcony, one with icicles to his face. The wight's body growing limp, leaving Anna screaming. Some of them weren't even real events. Elsa spotted flashes of her nightmares: Her father drawing a sword, Adrian's fingers blackening...

And, on the head mirror, a hill with a tree. A little girl sat against the trunk, facing away. Elsa's reflection stood inside this one, gazing at her intently.

"_There's no hiding, Elsa. We know your __purpose__. We know what you __are_."

Mary's fingers blackened, her flesh decayed, and she let out a feral shriek, revealing a set of bloodstained teeth.

Anna took Elsa's arm. "Elsa's not falling for your mind tricks anymore, you stupid evil snowman-mirror-wight-thing!" She turned to Elsa. "Um, you're not, right?"

Elsa shook her head. "Everyone, get behind me. Mary has my ice, but I can still feel it. I think I can take it back." Anna, Kristoff, and Olaf complied, huddling behind her.

The mirrors were making sounds now.

"_I spent three years _completely_ alone instead of __just_mostly_ alone!_"

"_Your sister is _dead... _because of _you."

"_You don't _get_ to have a family anymore_."

The she-wight in the mirror laughed, its voice a raspier rendition of Elsa's own. "_We tried to tell you, Elsa. __E__verything you touch dies. Everyone you love dies._"

Elsa raised her arm. Now it wasn't just the fingertip – Her whole hand was properly pale. "That's not true, Mary."

Mary flashed a bloody grin. "_Clearly, you need more proof._"

Glowing red icicles erupted from every wall. Then the mirrors shimmered, and the icicles continued extending outwards... followed by arms, and then slender, featureless bodies. They were snow-creatures, countless copies of the form Mary had taken before, all emerging from the mirrors as if the glass was water. One of the monsters neared Anna, but it was immediately rocked by a strong gust that exploded it into snowflakes.

The paleness was crawling up Elsa's arms, leaving splotches on her face. She'd also developed a case of spontaneous heterochromia now that her left eye was blueing.

"You made a mistake leaving my mind," said Elsa. "I'm not a helpless little girl anymore. I will _never_ allow my loved ones to be hurt." She waved her arms, forming an ice-barricade around herself, Anna, Kristoff, and Olaf. Now they were totally safe.

"Olaf? Are you up here?" said a voice from the staircase. "If you've gotten yourself into trouble, I'll have to suppress my-" Anders caught sight of the tower's interior. "-shock."

One of the snow-creatures spared him a glance, then jabbed an icicle.

"_Anders!_" screamed Elsa.

The ice-wall vanished and a hurricane wind pushed away the remaining snow-monsters, allowing Elsa to run to his side and drop to her knees. Anders had collapsed onto the ground. Now Elsa's wasn't the only face growing paler.

"Anders! No, no..." Elsa pressed a hand against his chest. His crisp, clean suit was damp.

Anders met her eyes. From his expression, it was clear he had no idea what was happening _around_ him, but he knew exactly what was happening _to _him. His eyes fell on her hair. "Oh, it's you..."

"Anders, please, no..."

"Good, I'm glad I get to... see you again... so I can tell you... how sorry I am..."

Elsa squeezed his hand as hard as she could. "Stay with me."

Anders managed to raise his head to her ear. "I watched them for you." Then his head returned to the floor.

"Hey, Elsa," Olaf called from across the tower. "What's up with Anders? Why'd he fall over like that? Weird, huh?"

Laughter echoed across the mirrors.

"_That was only the first, Elsa,_" said Mary. "_Once the eternal winter returns, I'll keep you alive to __watch__ a hundred thousand people share Emma's fate, and _then_ you can tell me if the Snow Queen's purpose is-_" Suddenly, she gagged and clutched her throat. The image of the she-wight on the mirror was tensing, as if her entire body was gripped by a spasm.

Elsa rose to her feet. "No more."

All the ice-creatures, all the icicles, all the mirrors, all the _madness_ became snow on the wind, swirling around her faster and faster. There was a flash like lightning, and when the light faded, Elsa was standing tall, skin pale, hair platinum, eyes blue.

"No more death."

A bolt of magic burst from her hands and struck Anders in the stomach. He gasped and sat up, panting. Where once there'd been a bleeding chest wound, now there was ice over his skin.

"No more Mary."

Through the blinding wind, a humanoid shape was visible. Mary was kneeled over in the center of the emptied tower, back in her slender, featureless form.

"What are you doing?" Her voice was growing frantic.

Elsa walked towards the snow-creature, her hips swaying. There was absolutely no doubt which of them was the Snow Queen anymore. Like Elsa had said, Mary had made a mistake. She'd assumed she could snatch away the magic, and that would make _her_ the Snow Queen. But all Mary had really done was stretch the magic like a rubber band, and now it had snapped back.

"Elsa, wait, it's me! Your Mary!" That old familiar feeling tugged at Elsa's mind. That inexplicable peace. "You _love_ me. You _made_ me."

Elsa paused. "You're right, Mary. I _did _make you." She reached out a hand.

Mary eagerly accepted it with her own watery, melted appendage. "I knew you still-"

The limb exploded into snowflakes. Mary stumbled back, shrieking with horror.

"And now I'm _un-_making you," said Elsa.

"No, no, I can't go back to nothingness!" Mary screamed, flailing blindly. Her other arm was dissolving, too. It started at the end and trailed up to her shoulder. "It's worse than death! Elsa, please, you have to help me!" She tried to step towards her creator, but her legs were also vanishing on her. Mary toppled over, her voice now nothing more than a faint mewl. "I never really wanted to hurt you! The wight made me do it! We can build a world of ice and snow _together__!_"

Elsa said nothing. She only watched as both Mary's body and voice dwindled.

"You love me! You _need_ me! Only I tell you the truth! Anna doesn't _really_ love you! Nobody does-"

Back when Elsa had tried and failed to make Marshmallow smaller and friendlier, she'd likened the struggle to trying to cut off her own arm. This hadn't been entirely true. Altering her snowmen on a fundamental level _did_ instill Elsa with a sense of wrongness, the same way lobbing off your limb goes against every instinct in your body. But there was an important difference: Cutting off your own arm is hard. You certainly have the _ability_ to do it, but it requires a great deal of effort and willpower. Changing her snowmen, on the other hand, had felt easy to Elsa.

That's what had terrified her so much about it. In that one moment, standing before a confused Marshmallow, she'd realized she was holding on to the existence of a living, breathing _being_, and she could change it the same as any other ice or snow. Countless potential sentient lives were putty in her hands. That was why she'd vowed to never toy around with her snowman-making powers.

But in the present situation, Elsa was willing to look past that. She was, after all, the absolute ruler of the ice and snow, and the ice and snow didn't care about moral dilemmas. It simply saw a patch of ice in a humanoid shape and acting like a person, and it understood that the Snow Queen no longer wanted that ice to be either of those things.

Elsa watched the last few snowflakes drift away over the balcony, towards the sunrise. She turned to Anna. "Don't worry. She's _definitely _not coming back from that one."

Elsa went to give Anna a hug, but to her surprise, Anna pulled away. "Wait a minute!" A big grin spread across her face. "How do we know you're the _real_ Elsa? Say something Mary would never say!"

Elsa hugged her against her will. "I love you."

Anna nodded in approval. "That'll do."

"Hey, what about me, Anna?" Kristoff joined in on the grinning. "Don't I get a hug?"

"I'll hug you!" said Olaf.

"Thanks, but that's not quite the same."

Olaf looked blank. "Why not?"

Elsa laughed and kneeled down to his eye-level. "You did a good job today, little guy."

Olaf peered up at her, and for once, he didn't look completely blissfully happy. "Hey, Elsa?" he frowned. "Why is Anders lying on the floor like that?"

Elsa looked over at him. Anders's eyes were closed, his face was calm, and his chest was rising and falling steadily. "I stopped his bleeding with ice. Looks like my magic's good for more than just killing after all." She turned to Kristoff. "Could you run him to the infirmary?"

"Yeah, sure." Kristoff obediently heaved Anders over his shoulder. "What do I tell the doctors?"

"What's wrong with telling them an evil snowman stabbed him?" asked Anna.

"Hey, Elsa?" Elsa felt a tug at her dress, and her attention returned to Olaf. "I think you made me a defective sister," he said.

Elsa sighed. "You're right, Olaf. I did. I'm not sure if Mary really loved anybody, but... if you want, you can tell her goodbye."

"Okay." Olaf waddled over to the spot where Mary had been a moment ago. He waved a stick arm. "Bye bye, bitch!"


	35. Boarding a Ship

Elsa opened her eyes, yawned, and immediately checked to make sure her gloves had stayed on securely through the night, a habit she'd developed after having to clean ice out of her hair one too many times.

Then she noticed her father sitting at the foot of her bed.

"Papa?" Elsa sat up, rubbing sleep out of her eyes.

"Good morning, Elsa," Papa said gently. "You must have been tired yesterday. You fell asleep with your face in a book."

Elsa tried to think back to last night, but it was all a blur. She _did_ vaguely recall reading, though. "What are you doing in here, Papa?" Elsa glanced at the clock. "Shouldn't Anders have woken me by now?"

Papa smiled at her. "We decided to let you sleep in. Elsa..." The smile vanished. "Your mother and I know the past few days have been hard on you. But we want you to know we love you and your sister with _all our hearts_." He put his bare hand over her gloved one. "Things are going to get better."

Elsa only nodded slowly, her face a blank slate. "Yes, Papa."

"_Mrowr?_" There was the sound of pawing from the other side of the door.

"Papa..." Elsa's eyes fell on the doorknob. "Can we... let the cat inside?"

She couldn't put her finger on it, but Elsa could swear a strange look crossed her father's face. "You know we can't, Elsa. Why do you want to?"

"Nothing, I just..." She closed her eyes. "I'm not sure I would hurt her, Papa... even without my gloves. I've been thinking, and... what I did to Anna... Well, what really happened was we were playing snow-pillars, and Anna was jumping too fast, and I slipped. My powers weren't out of control, exactly. I tried to catch her, and my aim was bad, that's all. Maybe I'm only freezing everything I touch because I let myself get scared?"

Papa let out a heavy sigh, then stood up and walked to a tray of breakfast food on Elsa's bed stand. "Why don't you leave the cat outside and try something safer?" He handed her an apple.

Elsa removed a navy glove and placed her fingers on the fruit. For a second or two, nothing happened. Elsa inhaled... then caught sight of Papa's face.

Though parents love to forget it, children are not stupid. Elsa knew darn well what Papa expected to happen. The instant the thought crossed her mind, out came the ice, covering every inch of the apple. The fruit fell out of Elsa's hand and shattered against the floor. Her lips were quivering.

"It's alright, Elsa," Papa said softly. He reached towards her, but Elsa immediately pulled away, returning the glove to her hand with lightning speed.

"I'm sorry, Papa..." She buried her face in her arm. "I know I'm not supposed to... feel."

Papa leaned in, touching her shoulder – or, specifically, the nightgown fabric over her shoulder. "Sometimes it's okay to feel a little bit." He let out another sigh. "But Elsa, you need to be careful. You're not going to learn control overnight."

"Papa..." Elsa looked at him with those deep, pained eyes of hers that didn't belong on a eight-year-old. "I heard you yelling at Anders."

Papa bowed his head. "I'm sorry, Elsa. I shouldn't have done that. Sometimes I have trouble controlling my emotions, too."

"You yelled because Anna told Anders we didn't love her anymore." Elsa's voice was hardly more than a whisper. "Anna's so lonely, Papa. She comes to my door all the time, and I... I never say anything back. But... you promised if I could safely touch things with my bare hands..." She had to stop there because her voice was shaking too much.

"Elsa..." Papa tried to hug her, but it wasn't very comforting considering he had to keep a couple inches of distance from her head and neck. Even that exposed skin was cold enough to burn. "You'll see your sister again. I promise."

* * *

The ice-tower was once again a tranquil and beautiful place. It no longer housed distorted mirrors, extremely sharp icicles, or snow-monsters of any sort. It did, however, contain a displeased Snow Queen giving her sister a look.

"_What__?_" said Anna with a practiced innocence. "He could've learned that from _anybody__._ The guards swear all the time!"

Elsa's expression was unchanged.

"Besides, that's, like, nothing compared to the bad habits Mary picked up," said Anna. "I mean, where did _she_ learn all that crap?"

"What's 'crap?'" asked Olaf.

"_Anna._"

"Sorry, sorry!" Anna winced, then asked, "Anyways, how long was Mary around?"

Elsa glanced at the tower walls. "Like I said, she was the opposite of Olaf. I made her by accident when I turned the castle into a second Ice Palace, just like how I made him. The difference was..." She bowed her head. "...when I made Olaf, I was happy."

Even though Elsa wasn't actually depressed anymore, Anna impulsively took her hand in comfort. "And so when we had that big argument and stuff, she was possessing your brain, right?"

Elsa sighed. "Anna, everything Mary said was a thought I'd had before. She made things worse, but I'm still accountable for my actions."

"Well, it's water under the bridge now anyways," shrugged Anna. "Besides, I acted bad, too, and _I_ didn't have any evil snowmen in my brain."

"I think I understand," Olaf told Elsa. "You and Mary don't love each other, and she's never going to possess your brain again, and you wish she hadn't in the first place, so now we're not going to talk about it, especially not to Kristoff."

Elsa raised an eyebrow. "Why not Kristoff?"

"Ha ha ha! Doesn't Olaf say the craziest, _randomest_ things sometimes?" Anna hurriedly ushered the snowman towards the staircase. "Hey, Olaf, I think Anders wants you to visit him in the infirmary. Run along, now."

"Okay." Olaf bounded off down the staircase. After a minute, the sisters could faintly hear him say, "Hi, Gerda! You look really crappy today, bitch!"

Anna could feel Elsa's eyes on the back of her neck.

"So, uh..." She let out an anxious chuckle. "How about those other snowmen Mary brought here?"

Elsa shook her head, then walked to the edge of the balcony. Marshmallow was still over there, holding himself upright with his arms in lieu of any other limbs.

"Hey, big guy." Elsa gave him a sympathetic smile. "Sorry you and your brothers were put through all this. Here, I can fix you." She waved her arms.

Nothing happened. Marshmallow bent to examine his legless torso and let out a frustrated grunt.

"What's wrong?" Anna frowned. "I thought you got your mojo back."

"I _have._" Elsa conjured up an ice-crystal in her palm, as if double-checking. "I just can't add any snow to the snowmen." She stared at her hands, confused. "Maybe..." The ice-prism vanished, and Elsa retrieved the crystal sword. "They're in _here._" Her brow creased. "I can feel them. This sword trapped them, somehow."

"Man, these ice-eating swords have sure caused a lot of trouble," said Anna. "Do you think we could smash it to pieces or something?"

"We'll bring it to the trolls. As for now, though..." Elsa closed her eyes and placed a palm on the flat end of the blade. After a second, the sword glowed white, and a bolt of snow shot out. The powder quickly re-formed, latching onto Marshmallow's legs and the various bits of twitching snowmen and snowbirds left in the wake of Anna and Kristoff's valiant battle. Some of it even formed into whole snowbirds, who immediately stretched their wings and preened themselves irritably.

Marshmallow happily pulled himself to his feet and retracted his icicles in relief. Cloud and Cottonball did likewise, then let out pleased grunts and walked over to him. The newly acquainted brothers leaned in to sniff each other's faces like dogs.

"Cloud, Cottonball, this is your brother Marshmallow," Elsa told them. "If you want, he can live with you on the North Mountain." The snowmen nodded. "Alright. We'll visit soon, I promise." Elsa was about to turn away, but then she felt something brush against her foot. She glanced downwards to find one of the snowbirds peering up at her.

"I am glad you are free of our bad sister," it said in its stiff, businesslike voice. "I want to make you happy."

"Thank you." Elsa smiled and allowed the bird to perch on her finger. "Hmm... Maybe Kristoff was right about you guys after all."

"Wait, what are these things?" asked Anna.

"They were supposed to be lookouts for the wight," said Elsa. "I didn't think they'd be sentient like my other snowmen, but it looks like I was wrong. I guess I can't animate snow without giving it a mind of its own." She turned to address all of her snow-creations, which, strictly speaking, were now mostly birds. The snowbirds all peered up at her. Most were scattered across the balcony, but a few dozen were perched on the railing. There were also countless flurry clouds wafting through the air, keeping them from turning into bird-sized puddles. "I hadn't planned on making so many lives. Somehow, Mary removed my inhibitions about it. She seemed to think my purpose was to create new life. I don't know if that's true, but... I'm glad each of you are here. I love all of you. I doubt you'll be much trouble for anybody, so feel free to fly around Arendelle's skies."

The birds replied with assorted cooing, which presumably meant they approved.

"Your Majesty," said the one on Elsa's finger, "we will gladly carry out your orders. That's why you created us, after all."

"You don't have to," said Elsa. "You're not my slaves. But I'll let you know if I ever need you."

The bird nodded. "Thank you, Your Majesty."

After that, it was time for the snowmen to return home. Most of the snowbirds flew off, and a few of them even returned to monster-size again so they could carry Marshmallow, Cloud, and Cottonball to the North Mountain in their massive talons.

Elsa gazed off the balcony. "I think that's all the unfinished business this ordeal's left us," As she spoke, she returned the sword to its ice-prism.

Just then, a massive yawn erupted Anna's mouth. "Man, nobody should have to fight evil snowmen at _this_ time of the morning. I'm going back to bed. What about you?"

"I think I'll stop by the infirmary."

"Suit yourself." Anna moved for the staircase, but before she left, she paused and turned back around. "Hey, Elsa?"

Elsa gave her a concerned look. "Yes?"

"Nothing, I'm just... I'm just glad you're okay. I mean, when you lost all your magic and you weren't moving and stuff... you really had me going."

Elsa walked over to her. "I'm glad, too. And I'm glad it's over now. Now that I've overcome Mary... I feel stronger."

Anna grinned. "I'm going to bed before I pass out on the floor, but as soon as I'm up, we're doing sisterly activities together, okay? Y'know, in honor of the wight being dead and you not being brainwashed and stuff."

Elsa grinned back. "I've got an idea for an activity already."

"Would it happen to be... building a snowman?"

"No, I'm going to wash your mouth out with soap every time Olaf says a bad word."

"_That's not a sisterly activity!_"

* * *

The wight cackled as his fingers clamped tighter over his victim's mouth.

"So you love her, do you?" he spat, twisting the boy's head to meet his sunken eyes. "Oh, yes, don't deny it. I heard you. I know how to keep out of sight of silly little mortals. Let me set the record straight, _Fritz_." Somehow, the fact that this thing knew his name brought Fritz almost as much horror as his imminent death. "Only _I_ love her. Elsa doesn't need any more liars. And you may be a bit scrawny, but the way you are squirming right now is making me _very_ hungr-"

"Fritz! Fritz, wake up!"

Fritz was wrenched from sleep by cold hands shaking his shoulders. The sight waiting for his eyes upon opening was a welcome change from the horrific monster they'd seen while closed – Elsa, her face full of concern.

"Wha- Your Majesty?" sputtered Fritz. He wasn't totally convinced this was really happening.

Elsa smiled and sat up. She was seated in a homemade ice-chair by his bed, which, Fritz realized, was an infirmary bed and not the one in his room.

"You looked like you were having a nightmare," she said.

This was a lot for Fritz to take in. He'd been _certain_ that monster was going to violently slaughter him.

"It's gone," said the heavens and earth manifested as a woman. "The wight's dead, and nobody was hurt."

That was great and all, but _holy cow, was Elsa actually paying attention to Fritz?_ He tried to say something suave, but his tongue tied itself into a knot in defiance. The best he managed was, "You mean I'm _not_ dead?"

Elsa laughed. Fritz hadn't known sound waves could be chemically addictive, but he got _such_ a buzz from that. "No, you just fainted."

"And you...stayed by my bedside?"

"Well, not the entire time," said Elsa. "But I figured I owed it to you."

It was at this point that Fritz's brain finally woke up and caught up with the rest of his body. _Whoa, she may actually be into you!_ it said in genuine shock. _Make your move! Make your move NOW!_

"Before all this happened, you had something you needed to tell me." Her eyes were looking _right at him. _"I'm sorry I was late, but you have my full attention now."

There was silence. Gee, Fritz had felt pretty confident right _before_ the monster had tried to kill him. He'd planned his whole speech and everything, but at this point his mental notes had been scattered and blown away on the mental wind.

In spite of all reason, Fritz opened his mouth.

_How about a simple 'I love you?'_ he told himself. _You can't possibly screw that up._

_Wait a minute! _realized his brain. _Every time we try to confess our love, something interrupts. Let's just keep our mouth shut and wait for-_

"Why hello, my tiny friend! Good to see you awake!" A big pile of meat tied together by a dashing grin neared Fritz's bedside.

_...Okay, that crossed the line from uncanny to eerie. _

"Good morning, Samson," Elsa said stiffly. "I see you've made a full recovery. Now if you'll excuse us, Fritz and I were-"

"Actually, Your Majesty, there's something I've been meaning to say for some time now." Samson flashed his teeth at her. "Believe me, I have seen a _lot_ of gorgeous women over the years, but... you leave them all behind." Elsa pulled back in her chair, but she couldn't escape from Samson taking her hand in his.

Someone had yanked the stopper out, and all of Fritz's hope was going down the drain. He sat paralyzed on his mattress, gaping at the sight before him.

"When that monster attacked me, I thought I was a goner, but you saved my life." Samson leaned in. "If only there was some way I could repay you..."

"I don't-" Elsa started to say, but her next word was muffled by Samson's face.

Fritz had been struck by lightning, and now the only thing left in the bed was a smoldering crater. The nightmare was real! Samson was kissing her with all his might! And Fritz just _knew_ Elsa was enjoying it! Why else would her eyes be so wide? She didn't want to miss a minute of Samson's handsome mug!

Without him telling them to, Fritz's legs flung him off the bed and out the infirmary. He sprinted down the hall, bawling hysterically.

This couldn't be happening. _This couldn't be happening._ The heavens and earth manifested as a woman were being overthrown by all the powers of hell manifested as a big, bodacious debauchee! A ruggedly handsome fiend, returned from the grave to ruin Fritz's life by seducing the only woman he'd ever love! This was_ it__._Fritz's entire life had been one long, twisted conga line of bad things happening to him, and he had finally hit rock bottom. This was without a doubt the absolute worst possible-

"Agh!" In his delirium, Fritz almost smashed headfirst into one of the servants.

"Oh, there you are," said the man. Had Fritz been in a sounder state of mind, he'd have recognized him as Kai by his distinct bald spot. "I've been meaning to speak to you, Mr. Gudmund."

"Uh buh buh wha?" said Fritz.

Kai shifted in place. "Well, you see, there was an incident a few hours ago, and Anders was wounded. He won't be able to continue acting as chief of staff, and so the position has transferred to me. But I promised him I'd carry out his wishes, and I was sifting through his notes, and, well..." He brought a hand to his forehead. "The queen employed guards at a rapid rate due to the wight, which led to some serious discipline problems and, frankly, questionable hiring choices. And now that the monster is dead, we don't need nearly as many guards on the payroll."

Fritz let out a whimper.

"Anders made out a list of staff members to cut immediately," continued Kai, "and... Look, there's no easy way to tell you this, but your name was at the top of the list. In big block letters. With three exclamation marks. Circled in red pen. And five arrows pointing to it. And a little note in the margin calling you a lecherous pervert."

Fired. Fritz was fired. Samson was making out with Elsa, and Fritz was fired. He nearly blacked out.

The next thing he knew, Fritz was in his bedroom, bawling even more hysterically than before. He stood over his bed, where an open suitcase rested. Fritz gravely dropped in the portrait of his momma, followed by his long underwear, and then his stuffed bear wearing a little bear-sized sky blue dress and blonde wig in a French braid.

Fritz's brain should have made a snarky comment here, but at this point, even his inner thoughts were sobbing incoherently. He almost didn't notice when his door creaked open.

"Fritz?" Charlotte let herself into the room, concern on her face. "I heard you crying again. What's wrong?"

Fritz wiped his eyes. "I was fired," he said hoarsely.

"Oh no!" Charlotte handed him a hanky so Fritz could loudly blow his nose. "I'm sorry, Fritz. I'm sure you don't deserve to be fired."

"Thanks, Charlotte..." It didn't escape Fritz's notice that she'd placed a hand on his shoulder.

_Wait a minute,_ said his brain. _Is it just me, or has she been paying attention to you a lot lately?_

Fritz shook himself out of it. That couldn't be right. Why would any girl show interest in Fritz voluntarily?

"But... I _do_ deserve to be fired." Fritz bowed his head. "I was supposed to be the queen's bodyguard, y'know, to protect her from that monster-thing. But when it attacked the castle yesterday... I was useless."

"You're not useless, Fritz!" Charlotte immediately said. "You're sweet and nice and... cute... I'm sure _any_ girl would be lucky to have you..."

For the first time, Fritz took a careful look over her. He'd been wrong before. Charlotte was more than adequately pretty... She was _very _pretty. With her bangs, headband, and maid's outfit, well... she was adorable.

Fritz's face was growing red, and not because he'd been crying. "Wh-What are you saying?"

Charlotte smiled at him. "I just don't want you to look so down all the time. I like you."

"_Really_?" Fritz was awestruck. Slowly, not entirely sure what he was even doing, Fritz reached his hand towards hers.

"Yeah," said Charlotte. "You remind me of my husband."

Fritz almost got whiplash from the speed at which he withdrew his hand.

"Well, anyways, I've got more work to be doing." Charlotte gave him another smile and moved for the door. "Keep your chin up!"

Fritz stared blankly as Charlotte exited his bedroom and left down the hall. A minute later, she crashed into another random staff member, and Fritz could make out her voice saying, "Ah! I'm sorry! I mean, uh, I'm Charlotte. That's my name. I just started working here! I'm such a klutz..."

A bubbling sensation was starting in Fritz's chest, as if his insides had turned into boiling pudding. The bubbling got bubblier and bubblier until finally it morphed into words:

_You. Total. Idiot. She... was... wearing... a... RING! __She's been wearing a ring this whole time, you moron!__I__t was stupid of you to even assume a girl like__d__ you in the first place. __W__hen in your seventeen years of life have you __EVER__ seen __ANY__ evidence you're anything but a __PATHETIC LOSER___?___Huh__?_

That was the last straw. Fritz dried his eyes, finished packing his suitcase, and stormed out the castle. He wasn't heading for the town or his momma. No, he couldn't stand to see the look on her face when she learned he'd been fired from his fifteenth job in a row. Fritz headed for the docks, walking right past a street performer playing some incredibly sappy violin music.

He was a failure... Fritz was a _failure!_ Nobody had ever wanted him... Momma probably wouldn't blink twice if she never saw him again... Elsa, of course, would be too busy planning her wedding with Samson to wonder where that skinny kid who used to follow her around had gone... And Fritz could already hear Anna's reaction to the marriage announcement: "Whoa, forget Fits! Elsa, you've hit the jackpot!" Well, Fritz was sick of it. If that's how people felt about him, then... then he was leaving Arendelle. Good riddance!

Fritz reached the pier and gazed out over the ocean. He had some money saved up from his weeks of bodyguarding. All he had to do was buy a ticket and skip out on the first ship outta here. He'd go somewhere _without_ any crazy royal chicks with magical powers, like Corona or Enchancia. Somewhere normal.

But that's when Fritz caught sight of someone heading onto one of the boats. He ran up in surprise. "Sampson? What are you doing here?"

Samson paused halfway up the ramp. "Oh, hi, uh... guy."

"_Fritz_," said Fritz. "Are you leaving?"

"I, err, decided it was time for a change of scenery." Samson turned around, revealing bits of ice stuck to his face. "Don't worry about me. I've got a cousin in France who'll take me in."

"I thought you'd finally made your move on the queen?"

Samson's dashing grin wavered. "It's sexist double standards, I tell you!" he suddenly yelled. "If a magical _king_ saved a gorgeous _damsel_ from a man-eating monster, and then she kissed the guy, nobody would bat an eyelash!"

"Wait, _what__?_" Fritz's heart skipped a beat. "You mean... Elsa _didn't_ want you?"

Samson laughed. "Alright, I admit it, things went south, and long story short, I need to leave the country as quickly as possible. It's very, _very_ rare, but this kind of thing _has_ happened before. Trust me, in my experiences, there's only one type of woman who can resist _my _charms..."

"A married one?"

Samson laughed harder. Then he leaned in, conspirative. "Let's put it this way: The freak's been hiding more than just her sorcery, if you catch my drift."

A lead weight dropped down Fritz's gut. "_What_ did you just call her?"

"Trust me, that's not the worst thing I called her," snorted Samson. "Serves her right."

Fritz had never felt this way before. His entire body was quaking with fury. "How... How _dare _you? Queen Elsa's the nicest woman I've ever seen! Oh my God, did you _put your hands _on her? That's horrible!"

Samson raised a beefy eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

"You think you can do whatever you want to girls just because you're handsome?" yelled Fritz. "That's _sick!_ So who's _really_ the freak here?"

It occurred to Fritz that he'd never seen Samson's face without the blinding white grin before. It looked a bit more... terrifying. Suddenly, Fritz was wishing he'd stopped to consider some important factors before blurting that out, such as the fact that Samson had quadruple his body mass.

"Well." Samson took a step towards him. "Who knew you had such a mouth on you, _my tiny friend_."

The next instant, Fritz's butt was fused to the wood of the dock, and his stomach was _stinging_. Fritz had been beaten up before, of course, but never by someone the size of a hippopotamus. Samson's boot felt like a cinder block slamming into his gut.

Fritz screamed and spun his head wildly. There were plenty of passerby around the dock. A couple of them stopped to watch, but most went on with their business. He tried to climb to his feet, but then Fritz found them leaving the ground. He was being suspended in the air by the collar of his uniform. This served the dual purpose of scaring Fritz to death and tightening the cloth around his neck.

Now Fritz had a good view of Samson's snarling face. The behemoth raised a fist. "Where's your smart mouth _now_?" Fritz closed his eyes...

But the blow never landed. It couldn't... because Samson's fist was stuck in a pillar of ice. It was _her..._ marching across the pier, cape billowing behind her in the howling wind she created.

"Oh, uh, Your Majesty!" Samson's voice wasn't quite as milk-curdling anymore. He immediately dropped Fritz and struggled to free his hand. "I, err, didn't see you there!"

Elsa's balance between beautiful and terrifying had never been tipped so far. "Get. On. The boat."

"Yes, Your Majesty! I was just leaving, in fact!" The instant the ice vanished, Samson scurried off up the ramp. You wouldn't think someone so huge could move so fast.

As soon as he was gone, Elsa knelt down to meet Fritz's eyes. "Fritz..." she said softly.

For the first time in his life, Fritz wished he _wasn't _in Elsa's presence. Look at him, crumpled on the floor, sobbing like a little girl. She must have known the truth by now, if it wasn't blindingly obvious before – He was a loser. A worthless little loser.

He wasn't expecting such a tight hug.


	36. Do You Want to Rebuild a Snowman?

Elsa had a boy in her bedroom. A whole boy, sitting there, right next to the dresser and the sunlit window and all the other things that actually _belonged_ in her bedroom. She'd definitely been right before – Fritz may have been older than he looked, but he really seemed like a little boy. It was almost surreal seeing a member of the royal guards, who'd all been callous and professional to a fault her entire life, slouched against the wall, weeping softly.

Elsa herself was sitting on her bed, grasping for something to say and feeling like a goldfish that'd had its bowl overturned. As much as she'd softened up to him, deep down she still thought of this kid as just another guard. The problem was, she couldn't possibly look at him that way anymore. Queens don't give their guards big hugs and then invite them into their bedrooms if the guard is too embarrassed to nurse his wounds at the infirmary. Elsa knew how to talk to a bodyguard. She didn't know how to talk to a _person_.

Except for Anna, of course. If she'd watched a huge man beat the daylight out of _Anna_, Elsa would have known _exactly_ what to say to her. But she couldn't act that way with Fritz – He wasn't family. So now Elsa had to deal with someone who wasn't family, wasn't dating family, and wasn't staff, and, holy cow, those were practically the only kinds of people Elsa had ever met.

At some point, Fritz quieted. Elsa glanced at him. For the second or so she saw his face, it looked miserable, but the instant Fritz noticed her, he hid it in his hands and turned away. Next Elsa's glance fell on the mirror frame above her dresser. The wonderfully empty mirror frame.

She could do this.

"Fritz?" Elsa seated herself before him on the carpet.

After a moment, Fritz reluctantly moved his hands and met her eyes. His widened. "You're hurt!"

Elsa impulsively brought her fingers to her neck. While she hadn't actually looked at herself lately (She was pretty sick of mirrors by now), Elsa imagined the wight had left some nasty bruises.

"The monster did that," she said, "but I'm alright. You're the one who's hurt."

Fritz seemed drawn back into reality. "Oh, right..."

"I really think you should go to the infirmary."

Fritz bowed his head. "I'm not even supposed to be here right now."

Elsa remembered the suitcase currently resting against the far wall. "You were leaving?" she asked. "Why?"

"I was fired." Fritz wasn't crying anymore, but Elsa had a feeling he could resume any second now.

"Oh!" The piece clicked into place. "I am _so _sorry, Fritz! With the wight dead, I told Kai to go ahead and reduce the staff. I forgot about you."

Fritz looked stupefied. "You mean... you want me to stay?"

"Of course."

"But... you don't need me anymore," said Fritz. "You only got a bodyguard because of the monster, didn't you?"

Huh. He raised a good point, actually. Elsa had honestly forgotten why Fritz had been kept around in the first place.

"Well..." she said slowly. "The _princess_ doesn't need a bodyguard anymore..." She gave a small smile. "...but, you know, an assassin could come for the _queen_ at any moment."

Tears were coming down Fritz's cheeks again. That hadn't been the expected reaction at all, and somehow the sight tightened Elsa's stomach. It dawned on her that she really, _really_ wanted this person to be happy.

"Queen Elsa, I-" Fritz wiped his face, then let out a grunt of frustration. It almost made Elsa wince. Being angry at yourself for crying was, in her experience, the absolute worst feeling in the world.

"Queen Elsa, I _know_ I'm a terrible bodyguard. I never should've gotten this job in the first place. What are you going to do, keep me around out of pity? Let me live here and hand me a paycheck no matter how scrawny and weak I am?"

Elsa closed her eyes. He was right, she knew. That was exactly what she was doing.

"Where else will you go?" she asked.

"Don't know," Fritz said faintly. "Momma wouldn't want me to come back to her place _again_... I was just gonna hop on a boat and figure it out from there."

Elsa took a deep breath. She just had to tell him the truth. Just had to say, "I don't want you to leave me." The words didn't come.

"I tried to tell you the last time I got put in the hospital," sniffed Fritz, "I'm a loser. A screw up. I've never done anything right in my entire life." He turned his head away again. "I couldn't even do anything to help you when you were..." His voice trailed off, shaking.

This caught Elsa's attention. "What do you mean?"

Fritz met her eyes again. "I don't know everything about you... the ice powers and eternal winter and rebellion and monster and all that other stuff... but... I _do _know that one day, right after the rebellion, you came to me, and you had those nightmares... Something happenedto you, and I didn't do anything about it. I didn't know what to say, and I let myself sit there like an idiot... and when we thought Samson died, you came to me _again_, and then you had the anxiety attack, and I was _still _too stupid to... to..."

He was cut off by a cold hand taking his warm one. Elsa had no idea what she was doing at this point. Was it okay to hold hands with a not-family-not-staff-person?

"Fritz, I promise you, I'm going to be alright," she said. "_I'm_ the one who hasn't done anything to help _you_. I was so caught up in my own problems that I never noticed you were hurting inside. But you know what?" She gave him another smile. "You just made me realize something. I'm not going to keep you as my bodyguard out of pity... I'm going to do it because you have skills none of the other guards have."

Fritz looked befuddled.

"You are..." Elsa took his other hand in hers. "...kind and caring and sensitive. I won't accept anything less from somebody I'm trusting with my life. Especially after _Samson_."

You could see the gradual change from befuddled to touched to crying again. "Did, uh... Did Samson...?"

"Don't worry," Elsa smirked. "He backed off pretty quickly once his lips turned blue."

Fritz replied with a weak smile of his own.

"I'm sorry about him, Fritz," said Elsa. "Frankly, I'm embarrassed I let trash like Samson onto the guard. And I'm sorry about what happened to you, too. I was coming to make sure Samson was on board... I hadn't thought he'd attack a person in broad daylight like that..." She scowled. "I can't believe I actually mourned him."

Elsa hadn't noticed it herself, but her misgivings about talking to a not-family-not-staff-person had been all but abandoned. "And Samson wasn't the only one! There have been major discipline problems from all the new staff. Did you know every single one of the guards _and_ one of the _maids_ has made a pass at me?" Her eyes narrowed. "It's disgusting. They only want _one thing_..."

Fritz's face reddened. "Um-"

"My country!"

Fritz winced around the time that second syllable hit his ears.

"They think I'm going to marry one of them so they can go from peasant to monarch." Elsa turned to Fritz. "Come to think of it... _you're_ the only person who hasn't made some ridiculous advance towards me." She put her hands on his shoulders. "Thank you. I appreciatethat. By the way, what was it you'd needed to tell me before?"

Fritz stared. They stayed like that for a while, a boy and girl sitting on the carpet, his back leaned against the wall, her hands on his shoulders. "Um," said Fritz.

Elsa cocked her head expectantly.

Fritz closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and began slowly:

"Before I came to the palace, I was just a loser nobody cared about. I screwed up at everything I ever tried to do. And... I never felt like anybody cared about me... But then I came here, and I met you, and at first you ignored me, too, but then you did something nobody else has ever done... You payed attentionto me. You told me I'm not a loser. And... for the first time in my entire life, I felt good about myself." He took an even deeper breath. "But... I also saw that you're really hurting, too, and at first I thought I was just-"

"Oh, Fritz," Elsa breathed.

"-attra- Wait, what?"

She took his hand in hers again. "I feel the same way."

You could've knocked Fritz over with a half a feather and a light breeze. "Y-You do?"

For someone who was always cold, Elsa certainly could give a warm smile. "Yes, Fritz. I know what it's like to feel the way you've felt... to live with it for years." She spared another glance towards the empty mirror frame. "It eats you away inside. And... you never realize... how important and special and loved you are..."

She moved in closer.

"...unless you're blessed enough to have someone come into your life and _tell_ you."

Closer...

"People can't live their lives alone. We need people to loveus..."

_Closer..._

"We need... friends!"

Elsa gave Fritz a big, friendly hug.

"I... I..." Fritz, apparently, was at a loss for words. He must have been left speechless with joy.

Elsa regarded him seriously. "When I said we were friends before, I really meant it. You know that, don't you?"

Fritz nodded lamely.

"Good," smiled Elsa. "You friendship means the world to me, Fritz. I've... never had one before."

Sadness had overtaken Fritz's eyes. "Yeah... Me neither..." he said quietly.

"Fritz..." Elsa ended the hug and rose to her feet. "You're a wonderful person. Don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise, alright?"

Fritz nodded again.

"I think I hear Anna stirring." Elsa moved for the door. "Now go to the infirmary, okay? I want you taken care of." She gave him one last smile and then left down the hall.

So that's what Fritz was. Not family, not staff, not her sister's boyfriend or a snowman or a political diplomat... He was a friend.

Elsa was on top of the world, and not only in the literal "far up north" sense. She'd helped someone. Someone just like herself had stumbled into Elsa's life, and she'd pulled him from the deepest pits of depression the same way Anna had pulled her. Elsa loved Mary being gone – Her head felt so clear. The wight was dead, the sun was shining, Anna was awake, and Elsa was more than ready for some sisterly activities.

Anna was already out of bed, still in her pajamas, and trying to act like she hadn't had her ear pressed against the wall. "Were you talking to Fritz?" she demanded the instant Elsa entered her bedroom. "Did he tell you how he felt about you?"

Elsa paused, then glanced back down the hall towards her doorway. "Yeah," she said. "He did."

* * *

Fritz went straight to the infirmary. At this point, Elsa could've told him to jump into a pit of hungry reindeer and he'd have done it in a heartbeat. Weird that he hadn't realized it sooner... Fritz was friends with the queen of Arendelle. That was pretty awesome.

* * *

Elsa led Anna into the kitchens, where Olaf was already waiting at an oaken table. Anna didn't realize it was a trap until she caught sight of the big bucket of soapy water resting on said table.

"Nuh uh, no way!" Anna took a step backwards. "I was serious before – That's not a sisterly activity!" She tried to run for it, but the exit was sealed by ice.

Elsa had on a devilish grin. "I was serious, too."

Anna ended up seated at the table, arms folded, staring apprehensively at the sudsy rag hanging on the bucket's rim.

"Listen up, both of you." Elsa stood at the head of the table, facing her sister and snowman. "We are _royalty_." She raised her chin, putting on an exaggerated air. "We will _not_ be caught using foul language."

Olaf raised a stick arm. "What counts as foul?"

"That would be any reference to private bodily functions, obscene gestures, and anything bluntly insulting or blasphemous."

Olaf's coal-eyes lit up with comprehension. "Ohhhhhhhhh. You mean like-" He proceeded to rattle off a list of every curse word known to man.

* * *

In the center of one of the castle's more nondescript hallways, there was a tapestry. This tapestry contained a very elegant floral design. It also contained two lumps, one shaped like a boy and one shaped like a girl, in very close proximity to one another.

Suddenly, the boy-shaped lump pulled away. "Ick! Anna, your mouth tastes like soap!"

"_Seriously__?_" groaned the girl-shaped lump. "I rinsed it out, like, twenty times!"

Kristoff emerged from the tapestry, followed by his girlfriend.

"Hey, wait!" Anna caught his arm and gave him a sly look. "Come on, I'm sure there's plenty of stuff we could still do if we put our minds to it..."

"Well," grinned Kristoff, returning the expression. "They _do _say using your imagination is good for you..."

Just then, something let out a squawk, and the couple spun their heads to find a snowy white bird perched on a nearby bust. The snowbird was staring at them, unblinking.

"What are _you _looking at?" asked Anna.

The snowbird preened itself innocently.

"Dang it, I'd really thought we'd lost it that time," grumbled Kristoff.

"Oh, there you are, Anna." Just then, Elsa came towards them from up a staircase. "You can't really be done with sisterly activities so soon?"

"_You dumped the whole bucket on my head!_"

Elsa looked over Anna's disheveled pyjamas and Kristoff's unmanly and equally disheveled blond hair. "I see you'd rather be doing _boyfriendly_ activities."

The snowbird hopped onto her finger. "They kissed intensely and fondled each other," it stoically informed her.

"Oh _dear_, what am I going to do with you two?" Elsa smirked and shook her head. "Now come on, there's one more obvious activity we haven't done yet." She took Anna's hand and led her towards the stairs.

Anna blinked, confused. "There is? What are we forgetting? We did snowball-fighting."

"Just one more loose end to tie up," said Elsa vaguely. "One last thing we need to do to clean up the damage Mary caused..."

* * *

Anna was awoken from her half-awake haze when she rolled over under the covers and realized she had way too much room on the bed. She sat up, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. Her five-year-old brain pieced together than Mama must have returned to her own bed during the night, a nasty habit most parents seemed to have developed.

Yesterday had been highly peculiar, and this was coming from Anna, who thought eating mud was a perfectly normal way to spend your time. Before last night, Anna had been pretty certain crying was one of those things adults never did. After the mysterious doppelganger cat incident, Mama had spent the next few hours in Anna's bedroom, sobbing and hugging and assuring Anna that her parents loved her very much. Anna hadn't realized how much she'd missed being hugged.

Anyways, Anna felt fine now that she was reasonably certain her parents did love her after all, and Mama was probably fine too because, y'know, she was a grown-up, and grown-ups always know how to handle every situation perfectly. Currently, Anna's biggest concern was whether she was hungry enough to head down to breakfast or if she wanted to stay in her room and play with her dolls.

Anna glanced out the window. Wow, there was still some snow left! It would make for a pretty mushy snowman, of course, but Anna would settle for-

Oh, wait. That was right. Elsa didn't love her anymore. Anna dropped her head and sighed. Maybe there was another answer. Maybe Elsa didn't hate Anna. Maybe... Well, she'd been getting gloves when Anna had tried to pounce on her, hadn't she? Maybe Elsa had a thing against dirt? Yes, that was the only logical explanation. Well, Anna shrugged, she'd wash her hands more frequently and see if that earned Anna her Elsa privileges back. Scientific method.

Anyways, by this point Anna had decided on playing with dolls, so she hopped out of bed to retrieve her absolute favorite doll of all time from its spot on the floor.

Anna's heart nearly stopped. There was stuffing everywhere, creating a trail leading straight to the doll's head... right across the room from its body. _What had she done?_

_Don't panic. Don't panic._ Anna carefully scooped up the fluff and returned it to the deep recesses of the beheaded toy. She gingerly placed the head onto the neck. There. Good as new. Anna let out a sigh of relief.

The head tumbled off and hit the carpet with an audible thump.

When something horrible happens, little girls don't immediately start crying. It takes a few second for the calamity of the situation to sink in properly.

It wasn't too late! _It wasn't too late! _It... It could still be... fixed... It wasn't gone forever... It... _It..._

* * *

A while later, a tiny head of red hair with miniscule pigtails crept its way across the hall. It stopped before a big, white door with blue patterns running up the sides.

_Knock, knock-knock, knock knock._

"Elsa... It's me. I came to say... I'm sorry I tried to hug you... I won't do it again... Look, we don't have to do it now, but later we're gonna eat chocolate together, okay? And we'll play with our dolls but not my favorite one 'cause it's broken now and I'm sorry about that too and we'll be best buddies again and I still love you even if you don't love me okay and do you wanna build a snowman?"

Silence. That was fine. It was... It was just gonna take a minute, that was all, but Elsa was definitely right about to open that door. Anna was offering chocolate! Elsa never turned down chocolate. It was... impossible. That door was gonna swing open any second now.

Wait for it... Wait for it...

* * *

Elsa placed the head on the snowwoman, then overlooked their work proudly.

"The first one was lumpier," said Anna. "It looks way better now."

"Yeah." Elsa nodded, then took yet another look at the mirror frame, as if reassuring herself it was empty. "Hey, Anna... Let's put off seeing the trolls for another time. Tomorrow, we need to visit Mrs. Dale again."

For a second, Anna's eyebrows raised, but then she forced her face back to normal. "Okay, Elsa, I... Yeah, sounds like a plan." She started to stand up, but Elsa caught her arm.

"Where do you think you're going?" Elsa grinned. "We haven't put on the handprints yet."


	37. Time to Slay

Anna giggled and turned the page. The princess was sprawled across her bed with an incredibly trashy romance novel in her hands. She was just getting to the good stuff when the door creaked open and the queen entered the bedroom.

"_Again_, Anna?" She smirked and seated herself at the foot of the bed. "These things rot your brain, you know." She absently shut the cover of _Divorce in DunBroch_.

"Hey! You made me lose my place!" But Anna didn't seem too cross considering the smile on her lips.

"Oh _dear_, did I? Here, let me help you." The queen snatched the novel out of the princess's hands and hid it behind her back.

"Do I need to hit you with this pillow?" The two engaged in an epic struggle for the book, but Anna's efforts were stifled by a surprise outbreak of tickling. She was reduced to a laughing maniac, sending pillows and blankets flying in all directions. The anarchy finally died down when the tickling turned into a hug.

"I love you."

"Love you, too, Mom."

* * *

Elsa's hair was trapped in a bun, her hands were trapped in white gloves, and her shoulders were trapped under a dark blue dress that went all the way up to her neck. Currently, she was standing in the middle of the library. Even with no one around to judge it, Elsa kept her posture perfect.

Elsa stared at the bookcase. She hadn't actually come in here because she wanted to read a book – She'd come in here because the library was a different room from her bedroom. Elsa stared at the wall. Right now, Anna was reading in her own bedroom, which meant she probably wouldn't be back in the library for a while. This presented Elsa with a rare opportunity to lounge around without constantly being on the alert for hyperactive princesses. Elsa stared at the carpet.

Of course, Elsa was no longer expressly forbidden from seeing her sister. After all, Elsa's gloves were on securely, the muscles in her face were probably dead from disuse by now, and it'd been five whole days since she'd made any ice. The current record was fourteen, from the time she'd gotten pneumonia and spent two weeks in bed. Elsa stared at the ceiling. It had been one of the most exciting things to ever happen to her.

It wasn't that Elsa was intentionally avoiding Anna, exactly. In fact, she'd even run into Anna a couple times in the hallways. There just hadn't been much to say.

"Oh, Elsa, I didn't see you there." Elsa flinched when a voice spoke up from the corner of the room. It'd been so quiet in here, she'd assumed she was alone.

"Good morning, Father." She gave a respectful bob of her head.

Her father was seated at his personal reading desk, which was covered in musty, half-decayed tomes. The palace had rounded up every scrap of paper in Arendelle that so much as had the words "ice" and "magic" in close proximity. Sifting through the hodge-podge of forgotten languages and cryptic phrases had become a pastime of his. It'd saved Anna's life by leading them to the Valley of the Living Rock, but the ancient texts' helpfulness seemed to be more of the flash-in-the-pan kind considering that was the _only_ thing it'd ever done.

Her father smiled at her. Elsa stared at him.

"Elsa?" His pencil-thin mustache curled downwards. "Is anything the matter? You look troubled."

Elsa gave herself a mental kick. She'd been _sure_ her face was neutral. "It's nothing," she quickly said.

More staring.

"Why don't you show me how your control is coming along?" Suddenly, her father rose to his feet and handed Elsa an empty mug from the corner of the desk. Elsa sighed internally – Looked like the count was resetting to zero again – then reluctantly removed a glove. Her father retrieved a stop watch from his coat pocket.

The skin stayed pressed against the handle for the first minute without incident. By the second minute, Elsa had to resort to closing her eyes, which sometimes extended it a good thirty seconds. By the third minute, Elsa realized she'd gone an abnormally long amount of time without freezing, which of course caused the entire mug to immediately frost over.

Elsa returned the frozen cup to her father and slipped the glove back on. "I'm sorry."

"You did well, Elsa." He gave her another smile. "You've made real progress." She nodded slowly, but her face was unchanged. She was _always_ making "real progress."

Now that Elsa knew another person was in here, she had no desire to remain in the library.

"Elsa?"

She halted at the door.

"I love you," said her father.

There was a brief silence.

"I love you, too," said Elsa.

* * *

The queen had just left the bedroom when the sound of shouting sent her running to the staff chambers.

"What's the matter?" she asked a passing maid.

"You'll never guess who's having another row," Gerda answered with a wry smile.

The queen groaned and made a bee-line for Anders's room. What she found, of course, was the butler and king standing outside the door, sporting matching, bright red faces. Anders was clutching a suitcase.

"What is it this time?" sighed the queen.

"I quit," said Anders. "I can't put up with this any longer."

"Then _leave__!_" yelled the king.

"Anders, please..." The queen put herself between the two. "We've done the best we could. You know that."

"_Ten years__!_" Anders's glare fell on her. "She has lived like this for over half her life, and you still measure how long she can touch things with a _stopwatch!_"

He might as well have slapped her in the face. "I know she's not getting better," the queen said quietly, "but she hasn't hurt anyone again, either."

Anders snorted. "Yeah, sure, and I suppose being locked away from society for a decade's turned her into a strong, confident young woman?"

"Anders, you have to understand-"

"People can't live like that!" snapped Anders. "You're not curing Elsa – You're bottling her up, and one day, all that pressure will boil over. _Nobody_ can handle that much stress, _especially _someone related to _you!_" He jabbed a finger towards the king, who scowled.

"Both of you, _please_-"

"And, for God's sake, Anna's even worse off! You two have done a _stellar_ job teaching her to act out for attention! Who wants to bet she'll sleep with the first boy she-?"

"_You don't talk about my daughter that way!_"

"Mark my words, one day everything you've built up is going to come crumbling down, and I for one won't be sticking around to see it." Anders pushed past the monarchs, then turned back to give them one last glare. "Whatever happened to that happy couple who was so excited to have another daughter so Elsa would always have a friend?" He snorted again. "What a load _that _turned out to be."

Anders was about to storm off, but at the last second, his hand was grabbed. "Anders..." The queen gave him a pleading look. "It's alright. You can go. I'm sorry we're in this situation. We _both _are. But... can you please wait? Someone needs to watch the girls while-"

"Fine." Anders made a show of rolling his eyes. "I'll watch them while you're gone, but that's _it_. Consider that my last act as your friend." He freed his hand and marched into his bedroom, slamming the door behind him.

The monarchs remained in the hall for several minutes. The queen bowed her head.

"Listen to me." She felt a hand take hers. The king's face had returned to its usual stoicism. "Everything's going to be fine in the end. But maybe..." The stoicism wavered. "...maybe I've been too hard on Elsa. I was so preoccupied with stopping her from making the mistakes _I _made... that she's scared to feel anything at all. Anders wasn't entirely wrong." He shut his eyes. "I'm only sorry it had to come to this for me to realize it."

"We should talk to her," said the queen. "And to Anna. Elsa hasn't hurt anyone since the cat, and Anna's old enough to keep a secret. We've waited more than long enough. It's time to tell Anna the truth."

The king smiled, then gently released her hand. "We can wait two more weeks. We'll have plenty of time to talk it over until then. Now come on, we're going to be late."

The couple shared a kiss, then left the staff chambers and made their way to the entrance hall. They found their daughter waiting for them at the bottom of the stairs.

Elsa curtseyed, then gave them that same troubled look from before. "Do you _have_ to go?"

* * *

It was way too hot out, but visually, at least, it was a beautiful morning. The sky was perfectly blue without a hint of gray, and the grass contained just the right amount of dew. It was like something out of a portrait.

And standing at the front of it all, also looking like something out of a portrait, was a pale girl. Her hair was dangling freely in a braid, her hands were bare, and everywhere from her shoulders to arms was visible through the thin, semi-transparent layer of ice around the rim of her sky blue dress.

"Hi," Elsa began. "I can control my ice now. I thought that... that'd be the first thing you'd want to know." She almost reached out to touch one of the stones, but she thought that might be disrespectful. "I wish you could see. I know you always wanted me to..."

There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who talk to tombstones, and those who don't. Elsa had just made the discovery that she fell into the former category.

She shut her eyes. "I'm sorry I took so long to come here. Before, even after the winter thawed, I... waited. I didn't know how I felt about my life and... what you did to it. But now... after this ordeal with the wight and Mary..."

You know what? She was the queen. She _defined _what was or wasn't respectful. Elsa put her palm against her mother's first.

"I finally understand. It's _hard__..._ trying to keep someone you love safe. It's like there's this person in your life who's more important to you than anything, and suddenly everything is about keeping her alive, and it's so tempting to lock her away from the world and shut the gates and hide, but..."

She moved on to her father's.

"I learned that you _can't_. You can't hide and keep secrets. You have to confront your problems. Nobody can take away your demons but yourself. If I'd done that earlier maybe... things would be different. And I think you came closer than I gave you credit."

She stepped back, placing herself an equal distance from both of them.

"In the end, all it really took was love. Both of you had that. You had more than enough. There was just too much... fear." Her eyes opened. "But you were only human. We all are. God knows I've made my share of mistakes, so... I forgive you. And I know you both forgive me. I love you."

She turned away. "I'm taking care of Anna for you. We're... We're so much better now, I almost can't believe it."

After that, Elsa walked a few feet to a nearby patch of trees, where two more women were waiting for her. One was a young girl with red hair and pigtails, and the other was a gray-haired lady who still looked pretty even with the wrinkles. There wasn't a trace of black on them – They'd decided to look their best, not drab. There'd be no crying today.

"I'm done," Elsa told them. "I'm ready to go home. Mrs. Dale?" She gave the woman a tight hug. "Thank you for everything. For understanding... for forgiving... for..."

"It's alright, Elsa." Mrs. Dale returned the gesture. "I'm glad you're not hurting anymore. I'm not, either. I know what happened to us was hard, but... everything happens for a reason. You and your sister are strong for your age, you know that?"

Elsa nodded.

"Some of my friends are putting together a memorial for Emma," added Mrs. Dale. "You should visit when it's done."

"We will."

After that, they said their goodbyes, and Mrs. Dale went off towards the fjords while the sisters returned to their carriage.

Elsa paused before boarding to look over a large clump of grass nearby. It was withered and brown.

"Phew!" Anna wiped off some sweat and hugged Elsa from behind. "I'm lucky you're a walking freezer. It's scorching out here."

"The drought," Elsa said quietly. "People will be out of food soon."

"Hey, Elsa?" frowned Anna. "We both know you can make Arendelle colder if you want to, right? So... why haven't you?"

"You really have to ask that?" Elsa's eyes wandered back towards the tombstones. "After everything that's happened, you think I'm going to use my magic over such a wide area without completely understanding how it works? I can't account for everyone. If anything went wrong... If even one more person was..."

Anna's face fell. "Oh. You're right, Elsa, I... I was being stupid. I'm sure there's some other answer."

"Let's go home."

Soon enough, the sisters were in the carriage, heading towards the castle at a steady pace.

Anna gazed out the window, watching the royal cemetery grow smaller and smaller. "I'm glad you came with me this time," she said. "Let me tell you, it's a lot less depressing than coming on my own. I mean, all alone in a graveyard... It's kind of a... downer." She forced a laugh. It almost sounded more like crying.

"Anna..." said Elsa softly.

"The world's so stupid, Elsa." Anna hid her face in her hands. "Why do people have to die? It's not fair."

"Mrs. Dale was right. Everything happens for a reason." Elsa gave Anna's hand a squeeze. "We've had hardships, but look where we are now."

Anna wiped her eyes. "Yeah... You're right. I mean, that wight nearly killed us, but if it wasn't for it, you wouldn't be with Fritz."

"Right." Elsa nodded. "And Kristoff."

Anna laughed for real this time. "Hey, wait a minute, pretty sure that's _my_ boyfriend!"

"I know," said Elsa, looking slightly confused. "I just mean, when I was apologizing to him, I got to know him better, so... he's my friend now, just like Fritz is."

"Well, yeah, I _guess_ so," frowned Anna, "but, I mean, wouldn't you say Fritz is more like... y'know... your really _really_ good _extra_ _special_ friend?"

Elsa's face was blank. "I don't know him _that_ well."

"Wait a minute." Anna's eyes narrowed. "When he was telling you how he felt about you... what did Fritz say, exactly?"

"Why, what was he supposed to say?"

"_I knew it!_" Anna banged her fist against the seat. "I knew he'd be too much of spineless wimp to say it!"

"What are you talking about?" asked Elsa. "Does this have something to do with why you were so giggly right after my conversation with him?"

Anna gaped at her like she was a lunatic. "Wow. You really _are_ clueless, aren't you?"

"About what?"

Anna groaned and brought a hand to her forehead. "Just... Where's Fritz right now? Me and him are gonna have some words..."

* * *

Anders stifled a smile as he turned the page of _Adultery in Agrabah_. He may not have been in his favorite armchair, but the infirmary bed wasn't _too_ uncomfortable.

"Psst! Anders!" said a voice from directly behind the book. "Are you at a good part?"

Anders lowered the novel to give a scathing look to certain snowman sitting on his lap. "Yes, it's very absorbing. I'd hate to be broken out of it."

"But you're talking to me," said Olaf.

"Yes," said Anders. "I am."

It took another minute for Olaf to go, "Oh!" and clamp his stick-hands over his mouth.

Anders was just getting back into it when the infirmary door swung open and the royal sisters entered. Anna stormed right past Anders to another bed further down, but Elsa came over to his side.

"Ah, Your Majesty," said Anders, shutting the book. "To what do I owe this pleasure?"

"I'm... not sure," said Elsa. "Anna wanted to see somebody else. Anyways, how are you doing?"

"I'm still in one piece." Anders gestured to the bandages over his chest. "I told the doctors all I need is a cane, but they keep saying something about how I'm 'crippled' and have to surrender my Chief-of-Staffness to _Kai_ of all people." He gave one of his rare smiles. "Can you believe them?"

Elsa brought a hand to his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Anders. _I_ created Mary, so..."

"Please, don't apologize," he cut in. "Heavens knows _you _of all people don't need extra things to blame yourself for."

"Hey, Anders," spoke up Olaf. "You're gonna get better, right?"

Anders peered at him again. "Olaf, I am very old, and old people take a long time to get better. The problem is, we don't have much time left."

Olaf blinked. "What do you mean?"

"Nothing you have to worry about, Olaf," said Elsa. "Not today, anyways."

Olaf didn't seem to press the issue, and Elsa breathed a sigh of relief. His innocence had been shattered enough with the swearing...

"Hey, Anders?" Elsa leaned in and murmured in his ear. "If Olaf is too stressful for you, I'm sure he'd be happy to live with his brothers on the North Mountain."

Anders's eyes widened. "_Absolutely not__!_"

Elsa looked surprised at first, but then she smirked. "I understand."

"I mean, err..." Anders cleared his throat. "_Someone_ has to keep an eye on the little hoodlum. Might as well be me."

Suddenly, a voice rang out from across the infirmary:

"_Friends? Ha! Don't give me that cop out, Fritz Herman Gudmund! You were made for each other! You're going to walk her down the aisle if I have to drag both of you myself!_"

Elsa looked distinctly nonplussed. "What's Anna yelling about?"

"_Teenagers_," huffed Anders. "Great, now my headache is back..."

"Hey, look on the bright side, Anders," said Olaf. "At least now everything's been dealt with completely over and there are no loose ends whatsoever."

* * *

The snowbirds dropped the snowmen back onto the mountain with an audible _thud_, then took back off into the sky. Marshmallow dusted himself off and glanced around. The North Mountain looked much the same as he remembered – lots of rock and snow with a gorgeous Ice Palace looming over the peak. Those birds had even been considerate enough to drop him and his brothers at the top of the icy staircase since they were probably a tad above its weight limit.

Marshmallow breathed a sigh of relief – not that he had lungs or anything. It was good to be home.

Well, it was good right before he spotted the thing standing in the castle doorway.

"Hrm?" he grunted in confusion.

Horse. An entire horse. Right in his face. The animal whinnied in fear and stumbled backwards.

"Don't mind my associate here," said a voice from beside it. "He's never seen a genuine ice-golem before. Beautiful creatures, I must say..."

Cloud and Cottonball neared the tall, rail-thin man with the dark coat and hat, sniffing him curiously.

"She calls you snowmen, doesn't she?" the man smirked. "That's adorable. She's adorable. This place is adorable." He gestured to the palace.

All three snowmen traded glances.

"Intruder!" growled Marshmallow.

They stepped forward in unison.

"Please, must this end in violence?" said the man, throwing up his hands. "Wait, who am I kidding, I love violence. Olympus!" He clapped.

The horse obediently presented its saddle. The stranger retrieved a package, unwrapped the cloth, and held it up, grinning.

The snowmen's eyes widened. This one may have been violet instead of blue, but they knew an ice-eating sword when they saw one.

"Little lake water on it, but still perfectly usable." The man brandished it proudly. "Who wants to dance?"

Cloud drew his icicles and tried to swipe at him, but the man moved with inhuman speed, ducking and jabbing the sword in Cloud's gut. There was a distortion in the air, and then Cloud was no more. Cottonball let out a shriek of horror and tried to flee, but the sword was upon him in an instant. Only Marshmallow manages to escape, making a giant leap over the ice-stairs and then tearing down the mountainside, roaring.

The stranger watched him go, twirling his crystal blade coyly. "Yeah, yeah, take all the head start you need, big guy!" he called after him. "I'm nothing if not sporting!" He turned back to his horse. "Eh, we'll get him later, right pal? C'mon, let's check out our new digs."

The man waltzed into the Ice Palace, followed by his steed. They both let out impressed whistles. The palace interior was just as majestic as the exterior, complete with another staircase leading up to the balcony and a new chandelier to replace the one Hans had rudely shattered.

"Now _this_ is a place worthy to hang the hat of a magnificent faerie such as myself!" The man tossed his top hat over his shoulder, revealing a pair of abnormally pointy ears. Then he lowered his tinted spectacles, revealing a pair of yellow-green eyes more feline than human. "Whattaya say, Olympus? No more sleeping in muddy gutters for us, huh?"

Olympus let out a whinny. He wasn't, like, a faerie horse or anything. He was a totally regular horse the faerie had befriended.

"I'm sure Her Queeniness won't mind if we crash here," shrugged the faerie. "I mean, it's not like anyone else is living here now that we've caught her snowmen." He let out a chuckle. "Man, I just can't believe she killed the wight _already._ We must've given her too much help." He gave Olympus an indignant look. Olympus whinnied again and tried unsuccessfully to steal the sugar cubes out of the faerie's coat pocket.

"Whatever. Serves the little jerk right. The gall of that guy, breaking into _my_ catacombs." He shook his head. "I tell you, monsters just aren't scared of unspeakably powerful supernatural beings like they used to be. But we're gonna fix that, aren't we? This chick's _definitely_ proved herself worthy of the hunt. _Olympus! Saddle up!_"

He clapped his hands again, causing Olympus to turn to the door and take a dramatic stance. The faerie swung a leg over the saddle, hopped on, and held the crystal blade high. An impish grin spread over his face.

"Time to slay."

**End of Part Two**


	38. History

A perfect rose of ice glided out the window, the winds carrying it over the gate and into the nearby woods. The ice-rose bobbed merrily in the open air, deftly passing between leaves and branches. It was making real progress, too, until it slammed right into a tree trunk and dropped to the dirt. The wind tried to pick it back up, but after a few frustrating failed attempts, it gave up and left the rose to melt.

A minute later, another, slightly less perfect, slightly more slipshod rose glided out the window and into the woods. This time it reached its target without interruption.

The little blond girl had been playing peacefully by herself until something cold hit her in the back of the neck. Her initial reaction was annoyance – The point of going to the edge of the woods to play was to _avoid_ pesky people, especially grown-ups whose favorite pastime was telling her to come down from those trees before she broke her neck.

And so it was a pleasant surprise to find the thing that had collided with her was not, in fact, a person, but something actually interesting.

"Wha-?" the girl breathed. It was some kind of transparent flower, bobbing up and down before her face. Cautiously, the child reached out a hand, but the instant she neared it, the flower darted away. "Hey!" Obviously, she had no choice but to drop down to the grass and chase it. It's not every day you come across a flying ghost-flower.

Ghost-flowers are pretty fast, but small children are faster. She sprinted after it, her bare feet treading dirt and grass and eventually stone once she reached the mansion. It was the huge, uninviting-looking type of mansion with a big, iron gate running around the entire perimeter. The girl had never found it particularly interesting before, and honestly, she'd been a little afraid to go poking around here. Rumor had it the owner was incredibly rich and even more incredibly mean. But her reservations evaporated the instant the flower traveled over the fence and towards the house.

To a small child with a love of tree-climbing, gates are only a minor inconvenience. She made it to the other side in time to see the rose disappear through an open window. The girl scurried over there immediately, but she was barely tall enough to see inside, let alone climb in.

"Hello?" she called out.

"Caught you," said a voice. "Knew I would eventually. Just had to set the right bait. Like fishing." The voice's owner peered over the windowsill to shoot her a grin. It was a boy, couldn't be older than twelve, with messy hair and a mischievous spark in his eyes.

But that's not what caught the girl's attention. That would be his pale skin, silvery hair, and striking blue irises.

"I didn't know there were any weird boys in this house," she said.

"And I didn't know there were any pretty girls at the edge of the woods, but here we are." The boy held out his hand and dropped her the flower.

The girl failed to suppress a grin. "Smooth. Have you been practicing that?"

"Well, I wanted to impress this girl I like..."

"Well, we don't always get what we want, do we?" Now that it was in her hands, it was clear this wasn't a ghost-flower. She didn't imagine ghosts felt so slippery or made your palms burn from the cold. "Is this magic?"

"Want me to tell you?" he asked.

The girl rolled her eyes. "Yes."

"Well, we don't always-"

"Yeah, yeah, you're very clever." The girl was feigning disinterest – standard procedure for dealing with the opposite sex – but she was also standing on her tippy toes, trying her hardest to get a better look at this weird boy. "Lucky for you, it's _really_ boring out here. I didn't think there were any other kids my age around. I'd be willing to put up with you if you wanna come outside and hang out."

The boy's face lit up. "Yeah, I'll be right-" He started to climb out, but the instant his hand grabbed the windowsill, frost erupted and crawled over the wood.

The girl drew back. "What was that?"

The boy sighed and returned inside. "_That_ was magic. I'd... better stay in here for now."

"Can you at least explain this 'magic' to me?"

She could no longer see his face, but she had a feeling the weird boy was smirking at her.

"Now if I do that, what will we have to talk about the next time you come here?"

She laughed. "Setting more bait, are we?"

"Maybe."

Then they both laughed together. The little girl with the curly blond hair was starting to feel a bit lightheaded, to be honest. This was... This wasn't real life. It was something out of one of her storybooks. And she was trying really hard not to like this weird kid, but...

Her thoughts were broken by the faint sound of footsteps from inside.

"Ah, no!" The boy groaned, then yelled, "Run! Hurry!"

"Wait!" The girl took a step back, disarmed. "Names! Names!" she blathered.

"Daniel."

"Olive."

And with that, she scurried over the fence and was gone. The boy kept his gaze fixed on her until she'd vanished behind the trees.

"Olive," he repeated.

Sometimes you can just tell you love somebody. You can tell the instant you meet them.

* * *

In fairness, his bedroom was pretty big, but when you've never left a room your entire life, it's gonna look small no matter what. Daniel waded through the mountain of hideously deformed ice-flowers between the windowsill and his bed. The footsteps were drawing nearer...

_Knock-knock, knock, knock-knock._

Good, the secret knock. That meant it wasn't Father. Daniel retrieved something from beneath his mattress- you couldn't tell anymore under all the ice, but it was a pair of salad tongs- and used it to turn the lock without cryogenically preserving his doorknob.

The door crept open, allowing another boy into the bedroom.

"Hey, Eric," grinned Daniel. "You'll never guess what I've been up to."

Despite being only a year older, Eric towered over Daniel – Some people are just dealt more cards from the puberty fairy. His hair was dark brown and much tidier, and unlike Daniel, whose wardrobe only ever included pajamas, Eric was decked out in a child-sized suit that made him look like a miniature Father.

"You talked to her?" Eric allowed himself a small smile.

"I told you it was a good idea." When it came to smiling, Daniel didn't have the same restraint.

"And she wasn't scared of...?"

Daniel rolled his eyes. "I made _flowers_, Eric. Flowers are the least scary thing in the entire world."

Eric chuckled. "How did you make flowers?"

"Practice." Daniel gestured to the nearby pile.

"And you don't think she'll tell anyone?"

"They wouldn't believe her," shrugged Daniel. "Look, it's all going to be fine. You worry too much. Now, tell me how our _dear_ old dad's been."

"Still 'sick'," said Eric. The quotation marks were secret code for "drunk." "You know how he is."

"Well, Father's not too bright," said Daniel. "One of these days he's gonna kick the bucket, and then _you'll _inherit everything. And when you're master of the house, you can undo this stupid rule about me being locked up all the time."

Eric smiled again, but it still wasn't a very big one. "Yeah, just so long as you promise not to freeze the _expensive _furniture."

Daniel laughed. "I'll have it under control by then. Watch me." He leaned against the wall and flinched when the ice caked it.

"Alright, but be careful, Dan," sighed Eric. "You're stuck in this room for a reason, y'know-"

"Olive." But Daniel was no longer listening. He was gazing out the window again, his eyes glazed over. "That's her name, Eric. Olive."

Eric snorted. "I cannot _wait_ for your hormones to simmer down..."

* * *

_Knock-knock, knock, knock-knock_.

Eric was no longer a little kid trying to wear a suit. Now he was a man successfully wearing a suit. And right now, he was also a man wearing a growing sense of uneasiness. It was taking Daniel too long to open the door. In fact, Eric could hear scuffling from the other side. It was no secret what was going on in there.

After another minute, the door finally opened, and Eric was greeted by a slightly taller boy in slightly bigger pajamas. Father had at least been charitable enough to provide him with that much over the years.

"Hey, Eric," grinned Daniel. "You'll never guess what I've been up to."

Eric raised an eyebrow. Over Daniel's shoulder and out the window was a crystal clear view of a head of curly blond hair darting across the lawn and jumping the gate.

"Making out?" said Eric flatly.

Daniel's grin widened. "Close."

"Daniel, you could seriously hurt this girl! Olive's already had to wrap her arm in bandages and tell her parents she fell out a tree."

"You worry too much." Daniel moved to return the salad tongs to his mattress, but first he had to wade through the bedroom floor, which was almost completely covered in ice-roses.

"That's what you said when we were kids!" spat Eric. "You haven't _aged_, you've... you've _intensified_!"

Daniel locked eyes with his brother. Logically, Eric knew it was the drop in air temperature that sent the shiver down his spine, but it certainly didn't _feel _that way.

"My powers _have_ gotten stronger," he said quietly. "But I know how to control it, Eric. It's _love_. I _love_ Olive. And I will _never _hurt _anyone_ I _love_."

Eric shut his eyes, took a deep breath, and brought his hand to his forehead. He exhaled a perfectly visible breath. There was hardly a spot in this bedroom _not_ covered in ice. It'd even crawled onto bits of the ceiling.

"If you care about her, don't be reckless," he said. "We both know Father and I are going out of town. I won't be here to bail you out if you do something stupid."

"_Me__?_ Do something _stupid__?_" Daniel feigned indignation. "Eric, I would _never__!_ You know I _love_ being locked in this room my whole life gathering dust." He laughed. It wasn't a very happy laugh.

Eric watched his brother with something like sadness- or perhaps pity- in his eyes. "Daniel, I know this girl is your one shot at happiness. But if you love her, you have to think about her well-being before your own."

Daniel threw himself on his bed. "I _do_ love her. Believe me, nobody knows how dangerous I am better than me. I'll never forget, Eric. Not after... after..."

His mouth decided for the rest of Daniel's body that it was never ever ever going to end that sentence with the word "Mom."

"So... you can trust me, okay?"

"Okay, Daniel," Eric said quietly. "See you in two weeks." He bowed his head, resigned, then returned to the hallway, gently shutting the door behind him.

* * *

Daniel remained on his bed, motionless, until a mop of curly blondness with a woman under it peeked through the window. She was now more than tall enough to reach.

"I thought they'd _never_ leave," said Olive.

"There you are." Daniel hopped off the mattress and climbed through the window, joining the girl on the lawn. The contact between his bare feet and the ground was almost more exciting to him than the presence of his girlfriend.

Squishy. So that's what outside felt like.

First things first, Daniel gave his eternal muse a kiss. It had to be brief, though, if he didn't want her perfect cherry lips to turn blue on him. They'd have to work on that. There was plenty of time to practice non-freezing kisses now. There was all the time in the world...

When he'd first spotted her from his window, Daniel hadn't thought Olive could possibly get any more beautiful, but she's managed somehow. She'd even worn one of her nicer dresses for this special occasion, a pink one with... long sleeves...

"How's the arm?" asked Daniel.

"The color's almost all back," said Olive. "It's fine. Just stick to using your magic to make roses from now on, okay? C'mon, I wanna get out of here already." She went for the fence. "Where are we gonna go?"

"Anywhere we want," grinned Daniel. With a flick of the wrist, he made them a handy snow-ramp over the gates.

"Very fancy," smirked Olive. "But don't you think someone will see that?"

"It'll melt way before the gardener gets here," Daniel said, stepping up the ramp and hopping over to freedom. "You worry too much."

* * *

A cloaked figure trudged through the mountains, finally coming to a stop at a large valley. He looked downwards. The grass came to an abrupt halt at his feet, and everything past it was covered in snow. It was like a little patch of the arctic had been sliced off and dropped here. Including glaciers.

The figure darted forward, crawling, spider-like, over twisted pillars and through winding caves. It was like a labyrinth of ice. The people in charge of naming landmarks could have gotten away with calling this place something like "The Ice Labyrinth" or "The Boundless Corridors of Frost," but they didn't. You see, this place wasn't most famous for the structure itself, but for what the structure housed.

The wight reached the heart of the catacombs, a vast expanse in the center of the icy caverns. He crawled out one of the narrower tunnels and took in the view.

The first thing in his line of sight was an enormous snow-monster, icicles for teeth, tree-trunks for arms, in a feral stance. The wight flinched, but he eased up after a minute when the creature failed to rip him to shreds. It was dead. Well, not dead, just... no longer animated by magic. It was only the _shape_ of a snow-monster now. An empty shell. A fossil.

And it wasn't alone. Nearly every inch of the vast cavern contained a snow-creature of some sort. Some were humanoid, some were quadrupeds, some were twisted beyond the point of comparison to anything else on the planet, and all were lifeless.

But the wight didn't care about any of them. His prize lay in the center of the room. It was a prism of ice, but what concerned him more was what was inside it: a woman.

Pale skin. Wild, silvery hair. Nearly nude, save for thin blotches of ice covering her body. An expression on her face nearly as feral as her ice-golems'. And a pair of swords sticking through her stomach. The cryomancer had been preserved in her death throes, not a hint of decay on her. Even the blood splatter was intact. In death, one last burst of her magic had turned the entire valley into an icy time capsule. And since no mortal could possibly traverse the catacombs and live, that meant nothing within had been disturbed for a thousand years.

The wight threw up his bony, black hands. There was a flash of light, and the next instant, the prism was gone. The woman's corpse splattered to the ground. Grinning, the wight stepped towards it, pinned the body down with a blackened foot, and then yanked the swords out. He held them up, examining them in the light coming in through the ice. They were beautiful and crystalline, unlike anything forged by human hands. One was a striking violet color, the other a deep blue.

"Those don't belong to you."

That's when the wight heard the voice. It hadn't come from above him... or below him... or any direction that really existed. Where the prism had once stood, there was now a dark blur in the air, as if someone had spilled ink all over the fabric of space. The "ink" drifted, twisted, and finally took on the shape of a tall, dark man with a tall, dark hat and tinted spectacles.

"Huh. Been a while since I hunted a wight." The faerie overlooked the wight with mild amusement. "I don't suppose you're gonna hand me my swords back and spare me the hassle of having to wrench them from your cold corpse?"

The wight stared, shock across his decrepit facial features. Then he bolted, scurrying through a nearby ice-tunnel like a frightened mouse.

"Yeah, you'd better run, you jerk!" the faerie called after him. "Cuz once I catch you, you're DEAD! Y'hear me? Well, you're already dead, but I'll make you _deader__!_ No one can escape the wrath of Brandr the Cryomancer-Slayer, the greatest, bestest, most formidable supernatural force in this world or the next! Your end is nigh! My hunt is unrelenting! I will never cease chasing you until... until..."

He watched the wight travel farther and farther down the tunnel.

"Frig," said Brandr. "I'm gonna need a horse."


	39. The Bjorgman From Hell

A perfect rose of ice glided into the outstretched hands of a tiny little girl with tiny little pigtails.

"You can do it, too? Wow, that's amazing! Just wait 'til I tell Elsa!"

"_Shh_... _Our secret_..."

"Okay! I'm great at keeping secrets! Like how I promised Elsa I wouldn't tell Mama how we snuck into the kitchen and ate that big tub of chocolate!"

"_You have a beautiful sister_."

"Princess Anna?"

Anna's dreams poofed away, leaving only a messy-haired girl drooling all over her bedsheets.

"Uh? Whuh? I'm awake... I'm... _zzzzz..._"

"Ma'am?" The voice called out from the other side of the bedroom door. "It's time to get ready for your sister's speech."

"Right, right..." Anna made a valiant effort to unstick her head from the pillow. "My sister's... spee... _zzzzz..._"

Ever been in the middle of a really interesting dream, and then when you nod back off, you can't for the life of you remember what it'd been about? Ah, well. Probably nothing important.

* * *

The Ice Palace on the North Mountain looked like it belonged there, surrounded by all that snow and freezing wind. It was thematically appropriate. But the second Ice Palace – which was really just the old Arendelle castle with a fresh layer of ice-paint – stood out from the surrounding town. It would've been an eyesore if it wasn't breathtakingly gorgeous. If anything, it made the town seem rattier by comparison.

The castle's newest landmarks included an ice-tower looming over the rest of the island, as well as a snow-covered courtyard that housed some impressive ice-sculptures. Well, their artistic integrity was questionable considering they were made purely by magic, but they were nonetheless impressive. The most recent additions were a pair of statues of the late king and queen resting beside the ones of their grown daughters.

The other notable feature of the courtyard was the flood of people coming in through the gates. Every type of citizen imaginable was there, including ice-harvesters, bakers, aristocrats, and an incredibly bratty kid in a horrendously uncomfortable bunad jacket.

"I can't believe you're making me wear this _again__!_" he moaned.

"But the queen's giving a public address," said his delightfully upbeat mother.

"I'm _six!_ I don't care about politics, you crazy woman!"

There was all sorts of talk amongst the crowd as royal guards ushered them around the castle doors. Some talk was of the drought, the recent rebellion, or that monster the queen had purportedly killed in the castle garden, but most was speculation on who the royal sisters were romantically tangled with. It was generally agreed that they were both in scandalous relationships with royalty from some glamorous kingdom or other, with the leading theories being Norway, the Southern Isles, and Arendelle.

Eventually, the crowd settled down and waited patiently for the queen to arrive. Since emerging from her mysterious isolation, Queen Elsa's major interactions with the public had been revealing her ice-powers, sending the kingdom into eternal winter, and turning the courtyard into a skating-rink, so there was a general expectation that something interesting was about to happen. At the very least, citizens expected a well-written public address. They certainly weren't expecting something slapped together at the last minute and going through revisions right this very moment.

* * *

"An evil snowman," said a councilman flatly. "You're saying an evil snowman possessed your brain."

"Too much to take in?" Elsa sighed and crossed out some lines with pen.

Elsa was currently seated at her icy throne in the council chamber. On the table before her was a pen, an inkwell, and scattered sheets of parchment containing more black lines than untarnished words. And seated around her was a group of advisors wearing acutely skeptical looks.

"It does seem a little far-fetched," said the ex-head of council.

"It's the truth," said Elsa. "I want to be open with my people. Oh, but I don't want them to think I'm trying to absolve myself of blame. Mary came from my own mind." She tried to put pen to paper again, but then threw it down in frustration.

"And you think you can make hundreds of people understand all this?" said an advisor.

"I guess not..." Elsa brought a palm to her forehead, unwittingly smearing it with ink. "But that's the story I told our diplomat to use, and he's already on his way to Weaseltown. You don't suppose the Duke will understand, do you?"

The question didn't warrant an answer.

"Your Majesty, with all due respect, you'd best make up your mind," said the ex-head. "People are already gathering outside. I'd hate for this public address to come across as ill-conceived."

"You're right." Elsa rose to her feet and made for the door. "I'll just have to leave it vague."

"Err, Your Majesty?" spoke up an advisor, a note of hopefulness in his voice. "Are you _sure_ you don't have female hysteria? Because I'm actually certified to treat the condition-"

"Yes, I assure you, that _won't_ be necessary." Elsa took this as her cue to hurry out the room.

The journey towards the entrance hall was a reluctant one. Elsa was starting to regret having announced this public address in the first place. Clarifying a few points to the people of Arendelle had seemed like a good idea at the time – It'd felt _tidier_, somehow – but now it was dawning on Elsa that the average citizen might not be able to hear the words "evil snowwoman" or "undead creature" and then calmly go about their lives.

_The_ _drought_, Elsa reminded herself. That was the important thing to focus on. Everything else was behind her.

Anna had somehow managed to drag herself out of bed. She was waiting at the doors to smile at Elsa and tell her, "Knock 'em dead," and then, "Uh, you've got some ink on your face." Seeing her sister was Elsa's last cigar before the firing squad. She took a deep breath, then marched out the front doors.

People. Everywhere. As far as the eye could see. Elsa had thought the coronation had been a little crowded, but now the courtyard held barely an inch of empty space between any two bodies.

And on top of that, Elsa's magic must have been working overtime to keep the castle from melting because it was scorching out. Elsa had gotten to the point where she could take warm baths without squirming, but she still had to consciously lower her body temperature quite a bit before she felt comfortable in this heat. She _really _didn't envy all the people who couldn't do that.

The only clear section of courtyard was the radius around her, which was being maintained by a line of guards. Elsa caught Fritz's eye and shot him a smile. Poor kid. His face looked totally sunburned.

Every last soul was watching Elsa expectantly. Elsa had given some thought to how to start the speech, and she'd come to the conclusion that it was best to open with some magic. That's what everyone had really come to see, anyways.

Elsa held out her arms and conjured up a staircase spiraling high above the crowd. Her last stairs had started out crude before she'd gone over them again, but Elsa wasn't some amateur letting it go for the first time anymore. This staircase came out perfectly on the first try.

Upon reaching the top of the smooth, icy stairs, Elsa was met with thunderous applause. This wasn't so bad after all, Elsa decided. She hadn't realized it, but she'd been itching for another chance to show off her powers. This public address was surprisingly fun, actually.

Well, until it came time for the "addressing the public" part.

A hush fell over the crowd.

"Good morning," Elsa began.

_Agh! Don't start with 'good morning!' You're a queen, not a schoolteacher!_

The silence persisted.

Living corpses are scary. People swinging swords or firing crossbows at you are scary. Watching your house burn is scary. Public speaking is _horrifying_.

"Arendelle has been-" Elsa struggled to speak, but the silence won out. Why was her voice so shaky? Elsa had been practicing speeches since she was five. Her voice _never_ shook! She could give fantastic speeches to the washroom mirror!

"Pardon. Arendelle has been-"

_Don't say 'pardon!' That's acknowledging you made a mistake!_

There were several things Elsa wasn't thinking about right now. Like people gaping at her when they saw an arc of icicles explode out her hands for the first time. She wasn't thinking about that. Or the screams as a fountain turned solid. Definitely not thinking about that.

There'd been a woman with a baby... She'd been screaming because _the life of her baby was in danger-_

_N__o__! No. _Elsa forced herself to stop. The same way she controlled the ice and snow, she now controlled her fear. She'd dealt with fire. She'd dealt with Mary. This was nothing. This was... was...

Oh God, there were thousands of eyes fixed on her. There'd been a fraction of that many at her coronation, and even that had sent her heart racing-

No. No. No no no no no no! This wasn't the same! She wasn't hiding her powers anymore. She had nothing to worry about. Why wouldn't... Why wouldn't the rest of her body listen to her brain?

Of course, the citizens of Arendelle were not privy to Elsa's inner thoughts. From their perspective, the queen had gotten nine words out and then stiffened like a taxidermied cat.

The silence was eventually broken, but not from Elsa's speech. No, it was from the whispers of the crowd.

"_Is she okay?_"

"_Is this the same queen who fought off a dozen rebels?_"

"_I _knew_ that was just a rumor..._"

Elsa's inner thoughts had been pretty disparaging, but those whispers were much, _much_ worse. It was all she could do to keep herself from dropping into the fetal position.

And that's when a voice sounded from behind her.

"Whoops! Sorry I'm late!" A bubbly princess was racing up the stairs. "You know me – I'm such a scatterbrain!"

"Anna?"

Anna reached Elsa's side and gave her a big hug. "Okay, I'm here," she smiled. "You can start the speech now."

Elsa was disarmed for a moment, but then she smiled back.

To be clear, Anna was not late for anything. She'd planned on hanging out in the background the whole time. But the people of Arendelle did not know this.

The subject of the whispering gradually changed from "Wow, Queen Elsa's such a pansy! She's too cowardly to give a speech!" to "Ugh, Princess Anna's such a ditz! She was late for the speech and held her sister up!" Well, except for the really dedicated scandalous-romance-theorists, who were too busy nodding their heads in approval at that hug and adding it to their growing list of "evidence."

Elsa turned from Anna back to the crowd. That was weird... It seemed much smaller now.

"Arendelle has been subjected to many hardships," Elsa said in a clear, steady voice. "Some stemmed from my sorcery. Some did not. Ever since my coronation, there have been rumors and misinformation about the nature of my powers. My magic is not the cause of Arendelle's drought. My magic is, in fact, no longer harmful at all. I have complete control, and I have only the best intentions for my country and the people in it.

"This country must once again overcome adversity. Food is being rationed out. Taxes are being increased. An unfortunate reality is that many of you will not be provided with as much as you need. But if Arendelle is to survive this ordeal with minimal damage, we have to remain calm. Right now, fear is our enemy. It was blind fear which sparked the rebellion that risked the lives of countless palace staff. It was senseless prejudice that kept Weaseltown from trading with us, worsening the drought crisis.

"But I know we can overcome this. The drought cannot last forever, and I assure you my advisors and I have worked tirelessly to devise the best solutions available. I will not let you down. Thank you."

And that was it. Elsa turned around and marched back down, followed by Anna. Once they'd reached the ground, Elsa unfroze the ice-stairs, and the royal sisters were escorted inside the palace by guards.

As soon as they were back in the entrance hall, Anna started to say, "That turned out pretty-" but she was cut off by Elsa letting out a cry of frustration and blasting a nearby bust with frost. "Elsa?"

"Sorry, Anna." Elsa sighed and reluctantly unfroze it. "I appreciate what you did, but I'm just... sick of being fragile."

"You're not fragile," said Anna. "Everyone hates public speaking, and you... Well, you haven't really had a whole lot of practice before."

"It was a bad idea," said Elsa, her eyes meeting the floor. "I rushed it. I wasn't ready."

Anna pondered this for a moment. "You need chocolate," she decided. "C'mon..."

She led Elsa to the dining hall, where a maid prepared them some steaming cups of hot cocoa. Anna watched her take a sip.

"Good?" she asked. Elsa nodded. "See, you used to flip out at that, remember?"

"I got used to it," said Elsa. "I just hadn't encountered much heat before."

"Yeah, and this is the same thing," said Anna. "You haven't dealt with that many people before, so no wonder you got stage fright. Heck, I'd have made a way bigger idiot of myself if it'd been me. But you'll get used to it, and then it won't be that big a deal anymore, right?"

"Right." Elsa took another sip. "Thanks, Anna. I don't know what I'd do without you... This reminds me, though. The last time we drank hot chocolate, I promised we'd get you more portraits. The gallery's still empty."

"Oh yeah," frowned Anna. "Huh. With all the evil snowmen and stuff, I totally forgot about that..."

"After we've visited the trolls to ask about the ice-eating sword, let's go to the art exhibit. We can go together this time."

"Yeah, I'll try not to clock anyone else before then." Anna gave a wry smile.

"Kristoff can come, too, if he wants" Elsa added. "I, err... I stopped re-freezing the lake the harvesters were using, so he's out of work right now."

Anna cocked an eyebrow. "Really? Why'd you do that?"

Elsa stared into her chocolate. "I just thought it was... disrupting the ice-harvesters' lifestyles too much... hurting the wildlife..."

"I guess that's good news for the ducks," muttered Anna.

"What?"

"Nothing."

Just then, the door creaked open, and an advisor entered the dining hall. "There you are. What are you doing in here, Your Majesty? Wasn't the council going to have a post-speech discussion?"

Elsa stifled a groan. "Not now. We've talked this drought issue to death. We've decided on our course of action, haven't we? What I need now is a break from my duties."

"A break, Your Majesty?" The councilman looked like he'd like to protest, but there wasn't much he could do. If the absolute ruler of the country decided to be lazy, who was he to stop her? He slinked out the room, shaking his head.

"A break?" A grin crossed Anna's face. "Who are you and what've you done with my sister?"

* * *

Anders grumbled to himself as he turned the page of the umpteenth romance novel he'd subjected himself to in the past few days. So long as he stayed trapped in this darned infirmary bed, Anders had a bad feeling he'd expend the castle's stock of books by the end of the week. He'd already lowered his standards just by dipping into Anna's bookshelf in the first place, and now he'd even resorted to reading the obscure ones like _Seduction in Storybrooke_, _Hot Blondes in Hollow Bastion_, and _Incest in Enchancia _(That one was _messed up_).

Anders lowered the book to glare at the snowman still seated on his lap. Olaf was currently occupied staring out the window and being bored out of his nonexistent skull.

"You know, you're welcome to leave anytime you like," said Anders. "I'm sure you'll have much more fun without a crippled old man slowing you down."

"But I promised I'd never leave your side until you got better," said Olaf.

"That's not necessary." Anders wanted to make a snarky comment, but he was too tired. His sarcasm was fading. "I'm just about to nod off, actually."

"Okay, if you say so..." For a moment, Olaf looked introspective – or as introspective as Olaf was capable of looking, anyways. "I know!" His face lit up. "I can keep my head here to watch you while the rest of me goes to play!"

"That's touching, but I think I can manage without you for a while." Fine, so it hadn't _completely_ faded.

"Alrighty, your loss."

Without another word, Anders shut his eyes, and Olaf bounced off the bed and out the infirmary.

* * *

Olaf wandered aimlessly for a bit before deciding to head outside to enjoy the heat. As soon as he arrived in the courtyard, the spike in air temperature caused Olaf's personal flurry to make an annoyed sputter and start snowing heavier. Almost everybody had cleared out of the courtyard, and besides, by now most of Arendelle's citizens had gotten past the point of shrieking their heads off at Olaf's arrival, so meet-and-greet was way too boring to bother with. Instead, Olaf simply drifted off by himself.

Heat was the best. Well, actually, Olaf had liked the weather a whole lot more before it got so hot that all the flowers and grass turned that ugly brown color, but heat was still really awesome. Besides, so long as he had his flurry with him, Olaf could stand on the surface of the sun and still be fine. Probably.

Olaf was broken from his thoughts by a set of teeth lunging at him. He jumped back just in time for the reindeer's maw to clamp around empty air.

"Aww, trying to kiss my nose, are we? I'm glad to see you, too!" Olaf gave Sven an affection pat with his twig arms.

"Hey, Olaf." Of course, where there was Sven, his pet funky-looking donkey wasn't far behind.

"Hi!"

Hmm... Seeing Kristoff was reminding Olaf of something, but he couldn't remember exactly what. Hadn't Anna told him something important about Kristoff? What had it been again? Was it... something they were going to talk about to everyone, especially Kristoff?

Yeah, that sounded right.

* * *

The queen was on her icy throne again, the beauty of her ice-dress dwarfed only by the beauty of her face. Fritz entered the throne room slowly because he knew he wasn't worthy to be in the presence of such glory.

"Why, if it isn't my good friend, Fritz!" Elsa said brightly. "I'm so glad to be your friendly friend on this day of friendship! Aren't you, friend?"

"Uh, yeah, Queen Elsa," said Fritz, "It's, um, not that I don't appreciate being your friend – it really means a lot to me. It's just... there's something I need to tell you."

"Go ahead, buddy!" beamed Elsa. "You can tell me anything, pal! Amigo! My second sibling! Life partner in the most platonic way!"

"I was just thinking," Fritz began. "Y'know, it's not really that big a deal or anything, but you just _happen_ to be a girl, and I just _happen_ to be a guy... We're young... It's okay if we make mistakes... World could end tomorrow for all we know... Do you wanna go get dinner together sometime?"

Elsa's face was horror incarnate. "_I knew it__!_" she snarled. "You're just like all the other men! You only want me for my BODY, you total pervert!"

"No, please, I'm not a _total_ pervert, I was only-!"

"Our friendship is RUINED, you MONSTER! There's only ONE WAY to deal with YOU!"

Elsa raised her icy hands, and Fritz cringed, bracing himself, and then right before he froze to death, his eyes shot open. He was lying in bed, his face drenched in cold sweat.

_That was a premonition_, he immediately decided. _I'm not telling her. Ever._

Fritz was just about to fall back asleep when a knock came at his door. He reluctantly climbed out of the covers and opened it to find a certain overzealous princess standing in the hallway.

"Fritz!" Anna said, her voice shaking with excitement. "Elsa decided she's taking the whole week off! That makes it the perfect time for you to do you-know-what!"

_Not you-know-what!_ Fritz screamed internally. _Anything but you-know-what!_

"What are you waiting for?" said Anna, grabbing his arm. "Come on!"

"_Agh, no__!_ I mean, uh-" Fritz cleared his throat. "I can't do it at this hour of the morning."

"Fritz, it's _noon_."

Oh yeah. Now that there was no longer any monster to guard her from, Elsa's demand for a twenty-four-seven bodyguard had fallen, meaning Fritz had much more downtime. It'd taken him about a minute to realize if he wasn't in Elsa's presence, Fritz didn't know what to do with himself.

"At least let me get dressed first."

"You'd better hurry, then. Elsa's coming this way!"

"_What?_"

Fritz shooed Anna out of the bedroom and changed out of his long underwear with lightning speed. Having a crush on the queen had been a lot less stressful before the princess knew about it. By the time Elsa arrived, Fritz's emerald guard jacket was only halfway buttoned up.

"Hi, Your Majesty!" Fritz opened the door before she could even finish knocking.

"You're not on duty, Fritz," smiled Elsa. "'Elsa' is fine."

Oh goodness, the inside of Fritz's head felt like a balloon. Elsa had approached Fritz _of her own volition__!_ Elsa was _talking _to him! Elsa had told him to use her _first name!_ (He didn't have much choice, though – Fritz still didn't know her last name.)

"Fritz," said Elsa, "Could you do me a-"

"_Yes, anything for you!_"

"-favor?" Elsa looked confused only a moment before continuing. "My sister's boyfriend is moving into the castle, and we bought him some furniture for his bedroom. Could you help carry it in?"

"Uh, yeah, of course."

"Thanks." And with that, Elsa left with Anna. Before vanishing down the hallway, Anna caught Fritz's eye and mouthed "Tell her already!" but Fritz stayed paralyzed with indecision until Elsa was safely out of sight.

Menial labor was _somewhat_ romantic, Fritz supposed. At least, he hoped it was because he seemed to be doing a lot of it lately.

Fritz didn't give it much thought until he was outside the castle gates. He was just about to help the small team of guards hauling an armchair when he heard an unmistakable snorting sound from behind him.

Fritz froze. No... It couldn't be... Not here! He slowly turned around. The rancid stench hit his nose before the gruesome image hit his eyes. It was big... and hairy... with terrible horns and a murderous gleam in its eyes... The hair on the back of Fritz's neck was standing up.

"R...R...Rein..." Fritz whimpered. "Rein..."

"Don't worry," said a voice. "He won't bite unless you're a carrot."

Some crazy blond guy walked up right next to the beast and put his hand on it. Fritz gaped in awe.

"You must be Fritz. Anna told me about you." The beast-master extended a hand. "Kristoff Bjorgman."

Fritz stared at it. He couldn't shake that hand. He'd seen where it'd been! But Fritz saw no escape. He feebly accepted the shake, making a mental note to dunk his hand in bleach later.

"I'm Fuh-Fuh-Fuh-Fuh-Fuh-Fuh-Fuh-Fuh-Fritz," said Fritz.

"Yeah, I know," said Kristoff with only a slightly condescending smirk. "I just said that."

"Oh, right..."

The presence of Anna's boyfriend almost made Fritz tremble more than the reindeer. The guy was _big_. Well, most people were compared to Fritz, and this one wasn't quite Samson-big, but he wasn't exactly scrawny, either. Rumor had it the guy was raised by wolves or trolls or something, and Fritz believed it. He'd tamed a reindeer, which in Fritz's eyes was the most formidable thing a person can do short of saddling up the devil himself and screaming, "GIDDY UP, BOY!"

_Get a hold of yourself, Fritz! _said the more rational part of Fritz's brain. _I'm sure Kristoff is just a regular person. You've got nothing to fear from-_

"Oh, hey, guys!" Olaf's head placed itself between them, raised by his stick-arms. "Are you friends now?"

"I dunno, we just met," shrugged Kristoff.

"Well, I think you'd make great friends," said Olaf. "You both have the same taste in women."

All the color in Fritz's body spontaneously vanished.

"What, are you dating a princess, too?" Kristoff chuckled at him.

"Nope, but he's kissed one," said Olaf.

Fritz frantically made a cutting gesture across his throat, but Olaf failed to get the message.

Kristoff looked blank. "I don't follow you, Olaf."

"I saw him at it," said Olaf. "It was that time you left the castle for a few hours. I was just walking down the hall, and I heard a funny noise coming from Anna's bedroom, so I peeked inside, and Anna had him against the wall. It was kind of like what she does with you sometimes, come to think of it."

The-Bjorgman-from-hell's eyes fell on Fritz. "Go on," he said tightly.

"Well, I came inside," Olaf continued thoughtfully, "and then Anna got all flustered and told me to not tell anybody about it, especially Kristoff." He smiled. Then, after a second, his eyes widened. "Oh. Wait."

"I just remembered something I have to go do on the other side of Arendelle bye!" Fritz tried to sprint through the gates, but his path was blocked by a snarling reindeer.

"Well, well, well." Kristoff folded his arms. "Leaving so soon, _pal__?_ But we're just starting to get to know each other."

"_You don't understand__!_" shrieked Fritz. "_It didn't happen that way! It was all a mistake! A horrible miiiiiiiistaaaaaaake__!_"

Kristoff and his reindeer traded glances.

"Sven," said Kristoff, "sic him."

The beast lunged, and Fritz screamed.


	40. Expert Opinion

When there wasn't a crazed snowwoman trying to murder her, the ice-balcony was actually an incredibly calming place to be. The view of Arendelle was amazing from up here, but honestly, what Elsa enjoyed most was the air. She wasn't adamantly against heat anymore, but now that Elsa was accustomed to both extremes, she'd come to realize that she wasn't simply not bothered by the cold – She _loved_ the cold.

"It's almost the way I felt on the North Mountain," Elsa said aloud, gazing up at the clouds. "So cold and tranquil... like I belong here..."

Beside her, Anna pursed her lips. "Yeah, but it's a kinda lonely, isn't it?"

Elsa let out a breath. "After that speech, I could use a little loneliness."

"Not me," said Anna. "I love having a gazillion people coming through the gates. I mean, back before the coronation, which, geez, feels like a million years ago, weren't you, y'know, sick of being alone all the time?"

Elsa's gaze moved to the town below. "I was... sometimes. It was such a sudden change, though. It takes some getting used to."

"But don't you want to meet new people?"

Elsa spotted the concern on Anna's face and took her hand. "Right now, you're enough."

But the moment was undercut by a lumpy snowman bounding up the stairs.

"Hey, Anna, your last boyfriend turned out to be a crazy guy who tried to kill people, right?" said Olaf. "Your current boyfriend would never do that, would he?"

"What? Of course not!" said a surprised Anna.

"Okay, unrelated question, when you told me not to tell anybody you and Fritz's secret, uh... that was more like a suggestion, right?"

* * *

Anna rushed to the courtyard, hoping against hope that Fritz hadn't been ground into pulp yet. Fortunately, she and Olaf arrived to find him pinned to the cobblestone by the hooves of a vicious reindeer but otherwise unharmed.

"Kristoff, I can explain-"

"We weren't even broken up a week, Anna!" Kristoff immediately snapped.

"It's not like that!" yelped Anna. "It was all a horrible mistake! I don't know what came over me! I was stressed out! We were roleplaying! I had too much chocolate ice cream! I wasn't in my right mind!"

"She's _never_ in her right mind!" added Fritz. "The princess is crazy! _Craz-_" But a threatening snort from Sven shut him up.

"There's nothing between us, I swear!" Anna put her arms around her boyfriend. "We kissed for like two seconds, and then we both recoiled in horror and agreed to never talk about it again."

Kristoff still didn't look too happy. "And then you kept it from me?"

"I didn't want you to get mad... kind of like what you're doing right now." Anna bowed her head. "I'm horrible, I know. Would it help if I said I'm really, really sorry and feel terrible about all of this?"

Kristoff huffed, then looked from Anna to the boy trembling under his reindeer. "Alright, I forgive you. It's just..." Kristoff sighed. "Don't take this the wrong way, but it seems like you're jumping from boyfriend to boyfriend awfully... _fast_. I mean, first you try to marry a guy you just met, then you immediately start dating me-"

"Hey! _You_ asked _me_ out!"

"I know, I know, and I wasn't going to say anything, but now with this stuff with Fritz, it kinda looks like you can't even go a few days without feeling, y'know, close to somebody." He took another breath. "I know you were cut off from people for a long time, Anna, and I know you're a feisty-pants, and I love you for it, but I think you could afford to be a little less feisty, a little more pants, okay?"

"Alright." Anna put her right hand over her heart. "I promise I won't get into any more shenanigans like this again. I learned my lesson."

"Okay." Kristoff turned to his reindeer. "Sven, you can get off him now." Sven gave one last snort before reluctantly removing his hooves from Fritz's chest.

"You've still got it wrong, though," said Anna. "I wasn't trying to date Fritz – _I mean, look at him_," she added in a whisper. Kristoff glanced at Fritz, who was currently shaking and trying not to look Sven in the eyes. "It's a little more complicated than that."

"Oh yeah!" Olaf suddenly blurted out. "I forgot to tell you the part where Anna was dressed as Elsa the whole time!"

Before, Kristoff had been outraged. Now, he was just really, really confused and slightly disturbed. "_What?_"

"Nothing, nothing!" Fritz squeaked in horror. "The snowman's crazy, too! He's just blurting out meaningless-"

"Fritz's got a _huge_ crush," said Anna. "It's the worst case of _Elsaitis_ I've ever seen."

"_Agh! Don't tell him that_\- I mean, uh-" Fritz cleared his throat. "She's lying."

Kristoff folded his arms. "And so he kissed _you__?_"

"Yeah, it was weird," Anna admitted. "Fritz likes Elsa, but she doesn't know it, and he's too... too... _Fritzy_ to confess his feelings. I've been trying to help him, and we did a roleplay, and... uh..."

"So is your entire life just one big parade of crazy antics, then?" Kristoff asked flatly.

"Look, the point is he refuses to do it! Seriously, I've tried to make him confess to her, like, a million times."

"She says I'm her _friend___,__" said Fritz.

"Ouch." Kristoff winced at his pain.

"Well, now that you know his dark secret, do you think you could help Fritz?" asked Anna. "You're the friends-with-love-experts guy."

"Maybe. But we didn't exactly get off on the right foot, so excuse me if I'm not super happy with this kid..." Kristoff brought a hand to his chin. "Hey, here's an idea – Since we're about to go to the valley anyways, why doesn't Fritz come with us? Y'know, to see the love experts?"

Fritz looked blank. "Love experts?"

"We'll explain later," said Anna.

"How does Elsa feel about dating, anyways?" asked Kristoff.

Anna and Fritz traded glances. "Not too good," admitted Anna. "But it can't hurt to try, right?"

Kristoff sighed. "Okay, well, in that case, how about before anyone confesses their undying love, you have a talk with her, Anna? Y'know, to make sure she's not just gonna shoot Fritz down the instant he opens his mouth."

"What? No!" yelped Fritz. "I don't want _Anna _to spill the beans for me!"

"She doesn't have to mention you, specifically."

"Wait a minute, Fritz," spoke up Olaf. "You mean you don't want anybody to know you're in love with Elsa?"

"Yes, she must never know!" said Fritz. "_Never__!_"

"Until you tell her yourself, you mean," said Anna.

"Uh... yeah. Right."

Olaf's face lit up. "So you're saying it's a... _secret_?"

Fritz's eyes widened. "No, wait-"

"I learned _another_ secret! Hey everybody, guess what?"

Olaf dashed out the castle gates, pursued by a scrawny boy shrieking, "_No, Mr. Snowman, stop! Where are you going? Don't-!_"

Anna, Kristoff, and Sven were left standing in the middle of the courtyard, watching the two shrink over the horizon. After a minute, Kristoff turned to his girlfriend. "You realize there's no way in a million years Elsa's ever going to date him?"

"Oh, come on, you don't know that!"

"I mean, unless Elsa's doing a charity case," Kristoff scoffed. "That kid looks younger than _you_, and, I mean, you said so yourself, _look at him_. He's scared of _Sven_! You really think that's a good match for the most powerful woman in Arendelle?"

"Yeah, but can you imagine if they _did _date?" said Anna. "They'd be adorable together."

"Well, good luck telling Elsa that." Kristoff glared at her. "Y'know, I really hope you're not giving this poor kid false hope."

Anna glared back. "Okay, Kristoff, remember when we first met Olaf, and he was so excited to feel heat, and you wanted to tell him right away? This is another one of those situations. We're not crushing Fritz's fragile little spirit."

"Fine, but ultimately, it's _Elsa's _decision," said Kristoff. "And I may not know her too well, but I really can't picture Elsa going along with this craziness."

"Yeah, I know, but..." Anna glanced up at the clouds. "I'm worried she's getting lonely. She needs to start dealing with more people than just me and a bunch of stuffy staff members. It'll do her good."

Kristoff sighed. "Alright. I guess it's worth a shot... Just try not to kiss anyone else, okay?"

Anna smirked. "Well, there _is one _person I'd like to kiss..."

Anna illustrated her point and then scurried off into the castle. Now it was just the boy and his reindeer in the courtyard.

Kristoff's anger had been alleviated somewhat, but he still wasn't in very high spirits.

"Women are nothing but trouble," said the voice of Sven.

"You hush."

* * *

"Hey, Elsa!" Anna arrived at the castle gates, leading a palace horse to the spot where Elsa was already waiting atop a horse of her own. "You, uh, you don't mind if Fritz comes with us to see the trolls, do you?"

Elsa cocked an eyebrow. "Why would he want to?"

"Oh, nothing, he just needs some... advice on romance." Anna gave a sly smile.

"Romance? Why, does he like someone?"

Anna stared at her. "Wow, you seriously don't-?"

"Um, hi, everybody!" It was that exact moment that Fritz entered the gateway, walking a wide arc around Kristoff and, more specifically, Sven.

"Looks like we're all here," said Kristoff as he approached the girls. "Time to head off. But, uh, I should warn you." He looked from Elsa to Fritz. "The trolls can be a little loud and... inappropriate. But they mean well!"

"I'm sure they're fine," said Elsa. "How inappropriate could they possibly be?"

* * *

"Kristoff's home!" screamed a delighted troll. "And he's brought _two_ girls _and_ a _boy__!_"

"Oh _no,_ we're not starting _this _again!" Kristoff immediately snapped.

The party of Kristoff, Elsa, Anna, Fritz, Sven, and a couple horses had arrived in the center of the Valley of the Living Rock, where the rock formation made downward steps leading to what almost resembled a man-made arena. And, of course, everywhere the eye could see there were bouncing boulders uncurling into even bouncier rock trolls.

"Are you a prince yet?"

"Kristoff, look, I grew another mushroom _out my butt__!_"

"I passed another kidney stone _out my_-"

"Look, it's good to see you guys," Kristoff announced to the crowd, "but we're not here to visit. Elsa needs to speak to Grand Pabbie."

Elsa nodded and retrieved the blue crystal sword from her horse's saddle pouch. "We need to show him this."

There was a collective "Ooooooh!" as the crowd admired the weapon. Trolls are big fans of any rock-craftsmanship.

"Oh, Queen Elsa, look at you! You're all grown!" A pair of trolls hopped forward, a man and a woman – Not that you can really tell those apart in trolls, other than by the woman's sassy voice.

"Elsa, Fritz, these are my troll-parents," said Kristoff. "Bulda and Cliff."

"It's nice to meet you." Elsa gave a polite bob of her head. "But I would like to see Grand Pabbie before I do any visiting."

"Yeah, he's in his burrow." Cliff took her hand, which required getting up on his tippy-toes. He led Elsa away through the trees.

"Who's this?" Bulda spotted the scrawny guard for the first time.

"This is Fritz," said Anna. "Say hi, Fritz!"

Fritz was a bit busy staring at the flood of horrible gremlin-beasts and praying none of them were hungry, but he managed to get out a faint, "Hello..."

"One second, please." Anna huddled with Kristoff to whisper, "Here's the plan: We tell the trolls Fritz likes Elsa, then they do their thing, and the two of them are trollfully wedded before either of them realizes what's going on!"

"See, I know you're joking, but the scary thing is that plan would actually work," said Kristoff. "Let's not mention that the object of Fritz's affection is actually present, okay? Trust me, the trolls would go berserk."

Anna nodded, then broke the huddle and announced, "We brought Fritz with us because he needs some help with a, uh, romance problem."

"Ooh, then you've come to the right place!" A manic grin passed Bulda's face as she examined Fritz. "Bend over."

"_What-?_"

The she-troll pulled back Fritz's lips so as to better inspect his mouth. "Oh dear, dear, dear." She shook her head. "Weak teeth. Let me guess: Unrequited love?"

"Uh, yeah," said Fritz through a mouthful of rocky fingers. "How did you-?"

"_So, your heart, it has been broke,_

_Because, let's face it, you're a joke,_

_and your skills are lacking in the dating game_-"

"No, no!" yelled Kristoff, waving his arms wildly. "No singing! That's not necess-"

"_Let me guess, you're 'really nice_,'" said Mr. Kidney Stone flatly.

"_But if you follow our advice_," sang Bulda, "_we guarantee to hook you up with what's-her-name_!"

"...It's Queen Elsa," muttered Fritz.

The music came to a screeching halt as trolls tripped over each other halfway through their elaborately choreographed dance sequence. Every last soul in the valley stared at Fritz, gaping.

"What?" Fritz shrank back.

"Uh... nothing, dear, nothing," said Bulda gently. "It's just..."

"She's _waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay_ out of your league," said a troll-child.

* * *

Grand Pabbie's burrow was at the far edge of the forest, out by a fjord. Currently, though, he and Elsa were outside, sitting by the cliff's edge.

"You have my deepest apologies for not warning you about Mary," sighed Grand Pabbie. "I thought if I told you of what happened, it would make it easier for her to resurface. I had hoped, with your powers under control, you wouldn't _hurt_ anyone else, and she would never return."

"Well, Mary is gone forever," said Elsa. "I've made peace with... with _Emma_." She shut her eyes. "But there are still so many unanswered questions. Who was the wight? Why was he so obsessed with me?" She bowed her head. "I wish I hadn't thrown away his body so quickly. Maybe you could've learned something from it."

"You did the right thing, Your Majesty. The corpse could have been cursed. You should never let yourself too close to black magic."

Elsa sighed. "But we know so littleabout him. Where did he come from?"

"The most I've heard of wights are legends and secondhand accounts, but I imagine it was brought here by your sorcery," said Grand Pabbie. "You froze an entire country – You've drawn attention to yourself. The best you can do is pray no other magical creatures have deemed you worthy of their attention."

"Well, _someone's_ out to get me. Look what the wight had on him." Elsa handed over the crystal blade. "This thing's enchanted to absorb ice." She demonstrated by shooting a puff of frost out. There was a distortion in the air, and then the frost was inhaled into the blade. "It's just like the one Adrian used."

"Yes, Kristoff told me about that." Grand Pabbie examined the sword carefully. "I've heard legends of such swords, but this is the first time I've seen one with my own eyes."

Elsa raised an eyebrow. "Legends?"

Grand Pabbie nodded solemnly. "I've lived as long as the planet itself, and in that time I've heard a great many incredible tales... but until now, I've never had reason to believe in the legend of Brandr the Cryomancer-Slayer."

"Brandr the Cryomancer-Slayer?" Elsa's stomach sank. That... wasn't the most encouraging name ever.

"He was said to be one of the Fair Folk."

"You mean a faerie?" A faerie that wanted to kill cryomancers? That couldn't be the "It" the wight had been ranting about... could it? "But why would a faerie want to kill people like me?"

"Because of your magic, of course." With a wave of his arms, Grand Pabbie conjured a lightshow, as if the Northern Lights had dropped down from the sky. "Billions of years ago, when I was young, magical creatures walked freely among this world." The lights took the shape of tiny, human-shaped figures alongside a much larger, bluish-white skeletal creature. "Magic and mortal lived together in harmony..."

The ice-creature released a blizzard from its mouth over the fleeing crowd.

"...at first. As the chasm grew, the Fair Folk came to believe that magic and mortal could never coexist. They took their own magic and retreated to the otherworld."

Elsa looked lost. "Otherworld?"

"The realm of the Fair Folk," Grand Pabbie said simply. "A place outside mortal comprehension. But the Fair Folk could not bring _all_ magic into the otherworld. Much of it slipped through the cracks." He nodded to Elsa – She was kind of a walking testament to that. "Naturally, many faeries were inclined to steal this magic from the mortals, and so the Faerie King put into effect the Fae laws, restricting his subjects' interactions with the mortal realm. You see, there _are_ Fair Folk who wish to control or harm mortals..."

The lights grew black, forming shadowed figures that Elsa's eyes could only catch for a second before they vanished: A huge, muscular creature with leathery wings. A thin, feminine, creature with dark robes, horns, and a raven on her finger. Countless crawling, child-sized creatures with insect-like antennae on their heads, stark black save for their glowing yellow eyes. Even a creature that seemed to be nothing more than a triangle with pencil-thin limbs and a lone eyeball in its center.

"...but the penalty they face for breaking Fae law is steep."

The lights drew an image of the muscular one being dragged, flailing and shrieking, into a mountaintop.

"The Fair Folk are forbidden from taking magic from the mortal realm without the owner's express permission. Thus, faeries often visit our world in the guise of humans in order to trick, bribe, and bargain for our magic. In fact, the Fae have even displayed interest in my tribe before. The Fae loathe humans, but they bear no ill-will towards trolls. I imagine we amuse them the way children are amused by poking an anthill with a stick." Grand Pabbie chuckled to himself.

"And this is where Brandr comes in." The light formed the image of a tall, slender, pointy-eared man standing at the front of a mob. "The legends say that he learned of a way to forge a weapon from human hatred. A weapon of pure antimagic. A weapon much like this one." Grand Pabbie held up the crystal sword.

"What's antimagic?" asked Elsa.

"Magic's equal and opposite force," said Grand Pabbie. "Cryomancy is fueled by love, and so a power fueled by hatred cancels it out."

"Hatred?" frowned Elsa. "Is that why Adrian's sword was so much stronger than the one Anna and Kristoff used?"

Grand Pabbie nodded. "Humans are capable of feeling intense hatred, more so than any other race. But to the Fair Folk, the concept of emotion is alien. Brandr required human hate to fuel his swords. He literally used mankind's fear of magic to kill cryomancers."

Now the light drifted out of the crowd and formed into a sword, which the light-Brandr took in his hands. The image changed to Brandr on horseback, raising his blade high and fending off the skeletal ice-creature's frost-breath to the applause of the crowd.

"It's hard to say exactly how many cryomancers walked the Earth before Brandr started hunting them, but it was far more than there are today." Grand Pabbie bowed his head. "Nowadays, they're born centuries apart from each other, and the knowledge of how to control their magic is virtually nonexistent."

Elsa nodded sadly. Her parents had scoured the four corners of the globe and had still come up empty handed.

"In exchange for Brandr's 'services,' the Fair Folk would take whatever magic the mortals had to offer to the otherworld."

The light took the shape of humanoid figures – people running and screaming. Elsa found her eyes pulled towards a certain cluster of light, which seemed to depict scurrying, apelike creatures dashing through city streets, stealing infants from cradles...

Grand Pabbie noticed her concern. "Changelings," he said gravely. "Faerie who take gifted children such as yourself and drag them to the otherworld, never to be heard from again. In the emptied cradles, they leave their own offspring. Some poor mortals never notice the difference."

"So then..." Elsa hugged her arms. Goosebumps were starting to form, and Elsa didn't get those when she was cold. "...do you think this 'Brandr' is real? Do you think he heard of my eternal winter, and now he's coming to kill me?"

But at this, a wry smile crossed Grand Pabbie's face. "I wouldn't be overly concerned about it, considering he died a thousand years ago."

"Died?" Elsa gave a start. "How?"

"At the hands of Mother Winter."

As Grand Pabbie spoke, the lights formed into Brandr, a sword in each hand, lunging at a woman with an army of ice-golems.

"The only cryomancer powerful enough to oppose him, Mother Winter was able to expose Brandr to enough raw magic to overcome his antimagic, sealing the both of them in a massive tomb of ice." And with that, the lightshow ended. "Someone must have found Brandr's final resting spot and retrieved his weapons."

"But how do I destroy them?" Elsa scowled at the sword in Grand Pabbie's hands. "I had my guards hammer on that blade with everything they had, and it didn't even leave a dent."

At this, Grand Pabbie frowned. "I'm afraid I don't know, Your Majesty. The only force that can shatter antimagic crystal would be raw magic, but even Mother Winter's wasn't enough to scratch these swords."

Elsa sighed. "I was afraid you'd say that. In that case, the best I can do is hide them so they can't be used against me. I guess the purple one is safe at the bottom of the lake, though..."

After a minute, Elsa turned back for the valley. "Well, thank you for your help, Grand Pabbie. My family owes you more than we can ever repay."

"You're most welcome, Your Majesty."

Elsa left the old troll's burrow with a heavier head than when she'd arrived. She'd hoped Grand Pabbie would alleviate her stress, not exemplify it.

* * *

Kristoff was left scratching his head and giving Fritz a sympathetic pat on the back.

"Wow, sorry, man, I've _never_ seen the trolls shoot down a romance that fast before."

"That doesn't seem fair," said Anna, putting her hands on her hips. "So I _have_ to marry Kristoff the instant I walk into the valley, but Fritz gets rejected right away?"

"Well, obviously, _Kristoff_ is good enough to date royalty," said Bulda, patting her son proudly. Then she whispered to him, "In fact, I think _you_ might be a little too good for _her_..."

"_Hey__!_"

"Well, this has been a _lovely_ visit," said Elsa, straining to keep her voice even despite no less than three troll children hanging off of her. "But we've been here for hours. We need to get back to the palace before dark. We'll be back soon to ask about that sword."

The group said their goodbyes and mounted their horses and/or reindeer, and then they vanished out of sight down the forest trail.

The trolls all waved goodbye as they left.

"It's nice to see Elsa finally has her magic under control," smiled Bulda. "Who knew all along, all it took was a little love?"

"Wait, magic?" said a shocked Mr. Kidney Stone. "I thought she was gay! Man, I've _totally_ misunderstood what's been going on all this time."


	41. Love Is A Finished Sandwich

_**Author's Note**_**: Hi! You probably came here from the wonderful comickergirl's tumblr, where I've commissioned her to draw this chapter's sandwich metaphor scene. If not, you should check that out after you read the chapter. The link's in my profile. Also, there's a link to an extra panel not featured on comickergirl's blog.**

* * *

Elsa turned over under the covers. She had nothing to worry about. The wight was dead, Mary was gone, this "faerie" was nothing but an ancient legend. Nothing to worry about. Definitely nothing to have nightmares over.

_There are war veterans who survive losing a limb or two, aren't there? Yes, yes, I like this idea...And this way, I'll still have something to eat-_

The next thing she knew, Elsa was sitting up in bed, panting, the familiar feeling of frozen sweat crawling on her forehead.

"Elsa?" The moonlight from the window illuminated the image of her sister standing in the doorway. Anna was in a nightgown, rubbing sleep out of her eyes, and looking vaguely concerned. "Everything okay? I thought I heard, like, a thump in here..."

"I'm fine, Anna," said Elsa, forcing a smile. "Go back to sleep."

"'Kay..." The girl vanished down the hall, leaving Elsa alone in her room.

Stupid nightmare. Elsa rolled over under the covers, trying to shake off a vague sense of disappointment. She'd thought maybe with Mary gone, the nightmares would be gone, too, but apparently not. It hadn't been as bad, though, she tried to persuade herself. It'd just been a _little_ nightmare.

That's when Elsa spotted it out of the corner of her eye, and she gave a start. Something had changed about her bedroom. Specifically, before she'd fallen asleep, there hadn't been a huge icicle embedded in the wall mere inches from the doorway. The doorway where, moments prior, Anna had stood.

* * *

This time, Elsa finished knocking long before the door opened. She was greeted by a scrawny, half-awake boy in long underwear.

"Hi, Fritz." Elsa gave a sad smile. "Looks like I need you again..."

* * *

Elsa stared into her breakfast. She was angry with herself. Her ice was under control now. She _knew _it was. If you only counted the times she was awake and not possessed by evil snowwomen, Elsa had exerted nothing but perfect control ever since the winter thawed. But when she closed her eyes, it was a different story. When she was asleep, the conscious part of her mind took a backseat.

Did that mean, deep down, there was a part of Elsa that didn't feel loved? There shouldn't be. She had her sister. She had her snowmen. She had friends like Fritz and Kristoff and even some of the original staff members like Kai, Gerda, and Anders. The wight and Mary were gone and Elsa felt completely fine right now, so why was this still an issue?

"Hey, there." Elsa was shaken from her thoughts by Anna seating herself across from her at the royal end of the table. "Elsa, we need to have a sisterly talk."

Elsa cocked an eyebrow. "Okay... Is something the matter?"

"No, no, I've just got something to say." With a _plop_, Anna deposited various items before her. There were knives, plates, loaves of bread, and two jars.

Elsa looked bemused. "Are you having sandwiches for breakfast again?"

"These are _visual aides_."

"Oh dear. This is going to be _some_ 'sisterly talk,' isn't it?'"

"Yes, now pay attention." Anna took out a slice of bread and slopped some peanut butter over it. "This peanut butter is me."

"Okay...?"

"And this jelly is Kristoff." Anna moved on to spreading purple over another slice. "See, when we're separate it's just, like, one slice of bread, and who wants to eat _that_? But when you put them together, it's super yummy and everyone's happy!" She slapped the jellied bread onto the buttered bread, completing the sandwich.

"And this one is _your_ bread." Anna handed her a peanut butter-covered slice. "Look at it, Elsa. It's all by itself! And, it's like, there's nothing _wrong _with it being by itself, per se, but just think of how much _tastier_ it would be with some jelly!"

Elsa folded her arms and gave her a stern glare.

"And, uh, some people don't like jelly," Anna hurriedly added, "I mean, there are some people who'd rather have peanut butter on _both_ slices, and that's _totally fine_, too-"

"Anna-"

"Ooh, and sometimes when I'm _really_ hungry, I put on a _third_ slice with _chocolate_ on it!"

"_Anna!_"

"_But that's not part of the metaphor!_"

"Anna, I've told you a million times," huffed Elsa, "I don't want to d-"

"_Sandwiches_, Elsa. Put it in terms of _sandwiches._"

Elsa rolled her eyes. "I'm not hungry." She stood up and made for the door.

"Wait!" yelped Anna. "What if the sandwich is really cute?"

"No means no, Anna."

"Y'know, someday you're gonna be stale and moldy!" Anna yelled after her. "And then _no_ _one_ will _ever_ finish your sandwich!"

The door slammed shut.

* * *

A while later, Fritz cautiously slinked into the dining hall and approached the royal end of the table.

"Um, Princess Anna, how did the talk go?" he asked.

Anna raised her head off the table. Maybe it was Fritz's imagination, but he could swear she had a crazed look about her. Maybe it was the peanut butter in her hair.

"Elsa doesn't know what's good for her!" spat Anna. "You two are _going _to be an item, Fritz! It's _happening__!_ Elsa's madly in love with you! She just... doesn't know it yet." She returned her face to her sandwich.

* * *

Elsa loved her to pieces, but she had to admit, Anna was kind of a weird sister. How had she managed to make Elsa's thoughts do a one-eighty from her nightmares to some ridiculous notion of _romance_, of all things? Where did Anna come up with this stuff?

Elsa stared at the smoothed spot on her wall which had, the previous night, housed a sharp icicle. The cracks in the wall had been filled in with ice, but you could still see the damage if you looked carefully. Elsa had ended up not telling anybody about it. The guilt really ought to be foremost on her mind, but somehow Anna's conversation this morning was still gripping it, and that had been hours ago.

Elsa needed someone to rant to about this, that was the problem. Anna hadn't raised the subject again that day, and Elsa hadn't wanted to give her grief about it unprovoked, so it had ended up as the elephant in the room.

"I'm here, Your Maj- Err, Elsa!" Just then, Fritz hurried into the bedroom. "I can keep watching you sleep as long as you like. I don't mind!"

Oh, of course, Elsa _did_ have someone to talk to about it. Her friend!

Fritz caught sight of her face. "You okay?"

"Yes, I'm fine, it's just..." Elsa had never really ranted before, but here went nothing. "Anna was being ridiculous this morning. Somehow she's gotten this idea in her head that I won't be happy unless I'm in a relationship like she is. And I've told her repeatedly that I'm not interested in that, but she brought it up _again _at breakfast today."

"You're not?" Fritz said faintly.

"No, of course not!" scoffed Elsa. "I've never understood why she's so obsessed with romance! It feels like-" For a second, Elsa seemed to lose her steam. She bowed her head. "It feels like a whole chunk of our lives was cut out. Like one day, Anna's a little girl who thinks boys are icky, and the next, she wants to marry a man she just met."

"I'm sorry." Had Elsa been less self-absorbed at the moment, she might have noticed all the sweat dripping down Fritz's face. Or his bright-red cheeks. Or his altogether _Fritziness_. "And, uh, do _you_ think boys are... icky?"

"I..." Elsa closed her eyes. Had she been less self-absorbed, Elsa might have _also_ picked up on the fact that Fritz was hanging onto her every word. "I'd taught myself to shut out those kinds of thoughts. All these years, I'd never thought I'd be... _able to_... and then, when I finally learned control, the chance to date wasn't exactly the first thing that sprang to mind." She let out a little laugh. "It never seemed important to me. I don't know why it's so important to Anna. Did she just read one of her romance novels and decide it was true?" She laughed again.

Fritz laughed, too. His wasn't quite as loud.

"Kristoff seems like a good person, but I wish Anna would understand romance isn't the only way to find happiness," said Elsa. "And I wish she would stop trying to meddle with my personal life, too. I mean, I don't even want to know who on earth she could have possibly had in mind for me!"

"Yeah," said Fritz. "Probably someone completely wrong for you..."

"Well, anyways, I don't want to bother you too much with my problems." Elsa smiled at him. "What have you done today?"

Fritz had spent all day composing the perfect words to say to let Elsa know how he felt.

"...Nothing much," said Fritz.

"Alright. But tomorrow we're going to the art exhibition, so you'll have to spend time by yourself. Goodnight, Fritz. See you in the morning." Elsa gave Fritz a friendly pat on the arm, then morphed her ice-dress into an ice-nightgown and unfroze her ice-heels before climbing into bed. Fritz dutifully pulled up a chair by her bedside and blew out the lantern, leaving the bedroom lit only by moonlight.

Ranting to her friend about it had helped, but Elsa's mind continued to dwell on romance as she drifted off. As she slipped farther and farther into dreamland, Elsa's thoughts on the subject grew less and less coherent...

The human brain is a funny thing. Sometimes the greatest mental breakthroughs come not from careful reflection and study, but from those random stray thoughts people have with their heads on a pillow. Thoughts like, _Wait a minute. First Anna brings Fritz with us to see the trolls for 'romance advice,' and then she talks to me about dating...__Hey, wouldn't it be awkward if the person Anna wanted you to date was Fritz, after you just gave him that big rant? He'd probably feel terrible! Ha ha ha... ha..._

There's a state of mind halfway between certainty and doubt, like that of a child who's first considered the possibility that Santa Claus is actually their parents but refuses to accept it.

Elsa turned over on her pillow to glance at her bodyguard. The instant her eyes fell on him, Fritz pretended he'd been staring at the wallpaper. No, she didn't _know_ he was pretending! She couldn't make out his face properly in the darkness. Besides, he was _supposed_ to be staring at Elsa to watch for nightmares.

That was weird. She'd never minded having Fritz watch her sleep before, but all of a sudden the knowledge that his eyes were fixed on her sent a shiver down her spine. _Get a hold of yourself._ Elsa forced herself to shut her eyes and focus on falling asleep.

This was preposterous. Fritz was happy to watch over Elsa because he was her friend who cared for her well-being, and that's all there was to it. There was absolutely no evidence whatsoever to support this outlandish "secret crush" idea.

_Well, other than the fact that he always stumbles over his words in your presence. And when you _thought_ his face was sunburned. And when Anna was screaming at him in the infirmary about walking someone down an aisle. And when Anna asked if Fritz had told you 'how he felt about you,' and you said yes, and Anna got all giggly. And when..._

* * *

Sunlight landed on the face of a queen who didn't look particularly rested.

…_and when you ate that banana and you could have __sworn__ he was looking at you oddly. And when you thought he was sick the very first time you __met__ him._

But all of that was circumstantial, Elsa reasoned as she climbed out of the covers. Come on now, she'd known Fritz for weeks. Wouldn't she have noticed something like this before?

"Good morning, Queen Elsa," said Fritz, his voice trembling. "Did you have a nice sleep?"

"Yes, thank you, Fritz," Elsa said idly. Her approval caused his face to overflow with joy. Friendly joy. For his friend_._

Elsa forced herself to drop it. She didn't have time to debate this with herself. She was supposed to be getting ready to go to the art exhibition. Elsa marched into her washroom and shut the door behind her, hiding her good friend who felt platonic towards her from sight.

Elsa focused incredibly hard on brushing her teeth. Why would he feel that way? She'd made it clear they were just friends. And if he was really so infatuated with her, why hadn't Fritz said anything to Elsa himself? It didn't add up.

And why was Elsa still thinking about this? She wasn't a preteen girl. She didn't care who may or may not have a crush on her! It was like Anna had possessed Elsa's mind and directed her every thought towards _romance. _Ugh, that word made Elsa gag.

_The exhibition. Focus on the exhibition. _

Elsa had left an elegant, dark blue dress hanging in here the previous night. She'd decided the art exhibition was a special occasion, and besides, she wore the ice-dress constantly. Nothing wrong with a little change. And if she really missed it, she could always line this one with frost or something.

Was this Elsa's fault? Had she, without meaning to, led Fritz on? She'd never dealt with a teenage boy before. What if they had some kind of strange alien mindsets? What if they picked up signals where you'd planted none?

_You're being paranoid,_ Elsa assured herself. Then she opened the washroom door a crack and called out, "Fritz! Could you help me tie the back of my dress?"

Elsa smiled to herself and shook her head. Look at her, all worried over nothing. Fritz was merely a kindhearted soul. He gladly helped her with her dress, doing an excellent job tying despite his hands trembling – probably because her bare back was too cold.

"Thank you, Fritz." Elsa turned around to beam at him.

"Y-Y-Yeah, no problem," said Fritz.

Elsa stared at him, then frowned. That was strange... "Hey, Fritz...?" She leaned in closer.

"Yes, Your Highn- I mean, Your Maj- I mean, Elsa?"

Closer... closer...

"You've got some dirt on your face." Elsa grabbed a damp washcloth and scrubbed it off for him.

"Thanks," said Fritz feebly. She must have made the cloth cold, too, because it left his cheeks all raw and red.

Once she had her hair and make-up done properly, Elsa exited the washroom and motioned for Fritz to come with her down the hall.

Just before leaving the bedroom, Elsa gazed at the regular, non-evil mirror now resting in the dresser frame. So what if Fritz acted antsy around her? He'd been that way ever since she'd met him. What, was Elsa expected to believe she was SO beautiful that he was infatuated the instant he laid eyes on her?

Look at her! Elsa was... weird and skinny_._ And pale. She'd always been sickly pale. Anna was the pretty one. Not her.

* * *

Anna chewed her sausage messily, not even bothering to keep her mouth closed. She couldn't help it – She was too exited to focus on eating. Soon the gallery would be full of new portraits! She'd really missed being able to talk to people who always listened no matter what, and Anna had already started assigning some personalities based on the pictures in her art book. She'd gotten up bright and early – Well, early by Anna's standards – and changed into her nicest dress right away. Her nicest dress before she got sausage juice on it, anyways.

The point was, Anna was already counting on today being a great day. But what she hadn't counted on was for the dining hall doors to swing open and her sister to walk in with her faithful bodyguard. Elsa looked different, somehow. When Anna saw her hanging out with Fritz the other day, she'd seemed fine. Casual. Laid back. But now Elsa seemed to be keeping at least three feet of distance between herself and her guard, and she was trying her hardest not to turn her head his way.

"Fritz," Elsa said as soon as she neared Anna. "Could you bring us some hot chocolate, please?"

"Sure, I'd love to!" Fritz scurried off like a dog obediently fetching its master's stick.

Elsa seated herself beside Anna, watching Fritz vanish behind the door almost anxiously.

"Elsa?" Anna frowned between bites. "What's up?"

"Nothing, nothing," said Elsa. She took a deep breath. "Anna, when you were talking about... _sandwiches_ before... did you have a specific slice of bread in mind, or were you speaking more in general?"

The fork paused halfway to Anna's mouth. Had Elsa just raised this subject again _herself__?_ That couldn't be right.

"Uh... Why?" Anna said carefully. "Who do you think I had in mind?" She finished the bite.

Elsa stared at her plate. "It's not... Fritz, is it?"

Anna nearly choked to death. "You figured out how Fritz feels all by yourself?" As soon as she swallowed properly and finished sputtering, Anna let out a delighted squeal and gave Elsa a big hug. "I'm so proud of you!"

"I didn't say Fritz felt _anything__!_" snapped Elsa. "I said I thought you might be trying to hook me up with him!"

Anna knew an opportunity when she saw one. "I don't know what you're talking about," she said coyly. "I just wanted you to date _anyone_. I never had a single soul in mind." She smiled coyly and pointed her fork. "You settled on Fritz all by yourself."

"What?" said a disarmed Elsa. "No, you... I didn't..."

"Ooh, somebody's cheeks are turning red," smirked Anna. "What made you finally notice him? How long have you been harboring these thoughts?"

"I'm not harboring thoughts!"

"Don't get mad at me." Anna took a nonchalant sip of her cup. "You're the one who brought it up."

"No, _you _did yesterday!" Elsa's voice was uncharacteristically shrill. "And I told you I don't want to date! And you know what? _Fritz_ doesn't want to date _me_, either."

A geyser of milk shot out Anna's nose. "Elsa, that's like saying the ocean's not wet!"

"What's that supposed to mean?" demanded Elsa.

"I brought you your hot chocolate, Your Majesty!" It was at this point that the door flung open and Fritz dashed towards them. "Last time I gave you ten marshmallows and you said it wasn't enough, and before that I gave you twenty and you said it was too many, so this time there's fifteen! I hope you like it!"

"Thank you, Fritz," said Elsa, accepting a cup. "That's very thoughtful of you."

Fritz looked like he might die of happiness.

"Hey!" Anna glared at her own cup. "Where are _my _marshmallows?"

"Oh, I, uh, forgot yours. Sorry."

"Fritz," spoke up Elsa. "My sister and I are having a private conversation, so if you don't mind..."

"Yes, of course, Your Majesty!" Fritz obediently ran off. "Come get me if you need anything. Anything at all! I'm glad to help!"

Anna watched Fritz hurry to the other end of the dining hall. She gave Elsa a knowing smile.

"That proves nothing," said Elsa.

"Oh, Elsa, I was afraid of this..." Anna shook her head. "You're in denial. Fritz is awakening feelings deep inside you that you never knew you had, and now you can't accept-"

"Look, I said I'm not dating, and I'm not going to sit here and listen to you tease me about it."

"Tease you?" Anna fluttered her eyelashes. "Whatever would I tease you about? The fact that you're spitting in the face of your dream beau?"

"_Anna._"

"You've frozen his heart, and now only love can thaw him!"

"Stop it!"

Anna smirked again. "Y'know, if it's making you so hot and bothered, you don't have to take my word for it. Fritz is right over there." She pointed across the dining hall, where Fritz was busy fixing a plate of food and trying unsuccessfully to eavesdrop. "Just ask him. He's such a nervous wreck, I bet if you so much as mouth the words 'romance, you and me' in front of him, he'll break and admit everything."

"Fine, I _will_ talk to him," said Elsa, rising to her feet. "And then you'll see that Fritz only wants to be my friend."

"Go ahead then, talk to lover-boy."

"I will!"

"I'm not stopping you."

"I'm going!"

"Then what are you waiting for?"

"I'm not scared!"

"I didn't say you were."

"Fine!"

"Fine."

"_Fine__!_"

Elsa stormed across the hall, stopping before Fritz's seat at the table.

"Hello, Fritz," she began.

Fritz immediately dropped his fork. "Oh, uh, hi, Your, uh, um, Majesty! You're done with your, err, private conversation?"

"Yes." Elsa took a breath. "Fritz, Anna and I were talking, and... well, she believes the silliest thing. She... you... I..." Her voice trailed off.

Anna watched the display carefully. Elsa was fiddling with her braid again, which Anna took as indisputable proof of all her suspicions.

You could practically hear Fritz's heart thumping from over here. "Yes?"

"Anna thought- and then I said- but she said I- and I didn't-!" Elsa's mouth was moving, and words were coming out, but she wasn't saying anything.

Now Fritz was getting a funny expression on his face.

"We're going to an art exhibit, and Anna's boyfriend is coming with us," Elsa finally blurted out. "I would... like it if you came, too."

Boom. Elsa hadn't just thawed Fritz's heart – she'd turned it to steam.

"REALLY? I mean, uh-" Fritz glanced at the invisible watch on his sleeve. "Let me check my schedulYES."

"Good. Good." Elsa put on a smile. "We were going to meet outside the gates in three hours. It's a formal event, so if you have anything nice to wear..."

"Yeah! Yeah! I'll be there! You can count on me!" Fritz dashed out the room. Anna had never seen him move so fast before.

Elsa returned to Anna with renewed confidence.

"There," she said smugly. "Now do you see-?

"Oh my God." Anna's voice was barely audible. "You just asked him out."

Horror crossed Elsa's face. "_What? _Don't be ridiculous! This proves we're friends."

"You asked him on a date!"

"No, it's a gathering of _friends_!" huffed Elsa, folding her arms. "Which is appropriate for him to go to. Because he's my _friend__!_ It was never a date – You were going with your sister _and _your boyfriend. That's not an intimate-"

"We're going on a double date!" Anna hopped up and ran off, screaming, "Hey, Kristoff, _guess what?_ We're going on a _double date__!_"

"IT'S NOT A DATE!" Elsa yelled after her.

Anna turned back to grin at her. "And you really think Fritz is gonna see it that way?"

"Of course he will," said Elsa. "We're just friends. He knows that."

* * *

Elsa had just asked Fritz on a date! He couldn't believe it! This was incredible! What had Fritz done to deserve this? Had his prayers finally payed off? Had he gone through puberty without realizing? Had he stumbled into some bizarre dream-world where his deepest desires all came true?

It didn't matter. It was happening. _It was happening__!_ It didn't matter that Fritz's social skills hadn't improved. Didn't matter that he found art exhibits painfully boring. Didn't matter that the nicest thing he had to wear was a painfully misshapen parka-looking thing his momma had sown herself. Nothing could go wrong today.

Of course, just the previous night, Elsa had asserted her displeasure for dating, but... but then why had she acted so funny this morning? She'd asked him to tie up her dress. She'd never done that before. And she'd leaned in _really_ _close_ before wiping dirt off his face...

What if... What if Elsa really _did _have a crush on him, too, and she really _was _too bashful to admit it? Yes, that was it. That had to be it!

"It's finally happened, Idina!" Fritz said to the stuffed bear with the dress and French braid resting on his bed. "Something's finally gone right for me!"

Fritz was driven into such a frenzy that he zoomed out his bedroom door the instant he was clothed, despite the fact that it'd barely been three minutes yet, let alone three hours. He nearly crashed once again into a passerby in the entrance hall, but this time it was thankfully not the new Admiral.

"Oh! Charlotte!" Fritz yelped, slamming on the brakes mere inches from her face. "Sorry. Didn't see you there."

"Hello again, um..." Charlotte looked blank.

"Fritz."

"Right! Fritz!" Charlotte let out a little laugh. "Now I remember you! Sorry, I'm friends with _so_ _many_ staff members..."

"Were you fixing to leave the castle, too?" asked Fritz, noticing the suitcase in her hands.

"Yes," smiled Charlotte. "I'm on maternity leave, actually." She brought a hand to her belly.

_Huh,_ said the slower part of Fritz's brain. _How long has that been there?_

_How did you not notice she was pregnant before?_ grumbled the self-loathing cortex.

_She's not _that _pregnant! _protested Fritz. _I thought she was just chubby! I wasn't going to say anything to her! I'm not _completely _socially inept!_

"Well, goodbye," said Charlotte, moving for the door. "Good luck with Queen Elsa."

Fritz's heart stopped. "_What? _How do you know about that?"

"The snowman told me." And with that, Charlotte left out the front doors.

Fritz stood, dazed, in the center of the entrance hall.

"Oh, hello, Fritz!" called out Gerda as she passed by with a pile of laundry. "Why aren't you with Queen Elsa? We all know how _attached_ you are to her..." Several other passing staff chuckled.

Fritz immediately went outside in search of a reindeer to feed himself to.

* * *

Olaf was playing with his kid-friends in the courtyard when a skinny guy covered in sweat ran up to him.

"Olaf!" Fritz shrieked. "You told people my secret?"

"What secret?" asked Olaf.

"_You know the secret!_"

"Oh yeah!" Olaf said as loudly as he could. "You mean the fact that you're in love with Elsa!"

If Fritz's eyes bulged any more, they'd pop right out his face. "Yes. That secret."

"Uh..." Olaf looked thoughtful. "Nope. Didn't tell a soul." He thought some more. "Oh, wait, I might have told one or two people."

"Hey, lover-boy!" A passing guard gave Fritz a playful shove. A minute later, a pair of maids walked by and giggled. Then one of the gray-haired advisors came up to him.

"I totally feel the same way, man!" he said with a sleazy grin and thumbs-up.

"_What is wrong with you, Olaf_?" Fritz screamed silently.

"You know, you really shouldn't have trusted me," said Olaf. "It turns out I'm terrible at keeping secrets."

Fritz's eyebrow twitched.

* * *

Ten minutes later:

"Oh, look at that... I've been mutilated!" The scattered pile of slush that had once been Olaf's head laughed to itself.

* * *

"So let me get this straight," Kristoff said flatly. "_Everyone _knows now? There's not a single person in the castle who doesn't know about Fritz?"

He and his girlfriend were gathered outside the gates a bit early, Anna in one of her fancier dresses, Kristoff in a borrowed dress jacket.

"Yeah, but we can't mention it to Elsa," said Anna. "Fritz has to tell her himself."

"But you just said Elsa already knows!"

"No, she does know, but Fritz doesn't know she knows, and she knows Fritz doesn't know she knows."

"_What_?"

"Okay, let me start at the beginning," said Anna. "Fritz likes Elsa. At first, nobody knew but him, but then I found out, and then we told you and Olaf, and then Olaf told everyone else. So you know and I know and Olaf knows and everyone else in the castle knows, and Fritz knows all of us know, but Elsa didn't know until last night, when she finally pieced it all together, so now Elsa knows, and she knows I know, but she doesn't know anyone else knows, and when I say Elsa 'knows,' I mean she 'knows,' but she doesn't _know_, y'know?"

"No!" snapped Kristoff. "I _don't_ know!"

"Shh! Shh! Wait! Here they come!"

Anna practically vibrated with excitement as Elsa and Fritz arrived at the gates, Elsa in her elegant, frost-covered dress, and Fritz in his bizarre parka thing.

"Are we all ready?" Elsa asked with a smile.

"Yeah!" said Anna, grabbing Kristoff's arm. "Y'know, I was thinking, it's gonna be awfully crowded with all four of us. We should take separate carriages! I can ride with Kristoff, and you can-"

"No, we can stand to be a little cramped," said Elsa, giving her a glare.

"Alright..."

The horse-drawn carriage rolled to a stop before them. The interior was _just _big enough to house four people if they sat two-to-a-seat, facing each other.

"I'm sitting with Kristoff!" Anna immediately plopped down next to her boyfriend, leaving only one other seat available. "Ooh, kind of a tight squeeze. Better get _comfortable_, you two..." She gave Fritz and Elsa a knowing smirk.

Elsa rolled her eyes and took a seat. Then she turned to her bodyguard outside. "What are you waiting for?"

"Uh, nothing, nothing..." Fritz climbed in. He did his best to not bump against Elsa, but the carriage really _was _cramped. Even the two skinny people ended up squished together.

"Are you alright, Fritz?" asked Elsa, glancing at his flushed face. "Is the drought making it too hot? I can cool down the carriage if you want..."

"Yeah, um, thanks," stammered Fritz. His eyes seemed to be glued to his calf, which was pushed right up against Elsa's protruding hips.

"The drought's not the _only _hot thing in this carriage, _eh_, Fritz?" Anna said in a singsong voice.

Everybody reacted at once: Elsa scowled at her, Fritz attempted to burrow into the seat cushions, and Kristoff moaned and brought a palm to his forehead.

This was going to be a long carriage ride.

* * *

_**Author's Note: **_**I know what you're thinking right now. You're thinking, "But peanut butter and jelly sandwiches weren't a thing in 19th century Europe!" Well, look here, smarty pants, there was peanut butter in 19th century Europe, right? There was jelly, right? And bread? And Anna's not exactly one to follow traditional food conventions. So there.**


	42. Double Date

Elsa didn't mind being cramped at all. In fact, she _loved_ being cramped. A year ago, she'd have died for the chance to have her knee squished up against another person's knee without worrying about the other person's knee turning into a hunk of ice. And it was especially great that she was cramped with her good friend, Fritz, because had she been cramped with any other boy, there might have been some awkward tension from the close contact of their bodies.

It was just unfortunate that her powers didn't seem to be adequately cooling the carriage, considering Fritz's face was still bright red. From the heat! His face was bright red from the heat. Actually, it must have been _really_ hot out because Elsa's cheeks were burning, too, and she could lower her personal body heat at will. There was no reason for it whatsoever. It was... inexplicable. It... defied explanation... It... It...

Elsa was the first one out as soon at the horses came to a halt.

"Here we are!" she announced.

"Whoa!" Kristoff was next, whistling at the sight before them. The art exhibition was being held in the mansion of a reportedly very wealthy, very eccentric man. Elsa and company had known it was a popular event, but they hadn't expected half of Arendelle to be lined up outside the front doors. "It's gonna take us all day just to get inside."

Anna laughed from within the carriage. "What good would being royal be if you weren't allowed to cut in line? Just one of the _many_ perks of dating royalty." She gave Fritz an incredibly unsubtle elbow-nudge.

Elsa rolled her eyes for about the fortieth time that day.

* * *

The queen, princess, boyfriend, and one thousand percent platonic friend were led inside and brought by a guide to the uppermost story, which had been reserved in advance.

The group made it two whole minutes with no crazy antics. They were halfway up the stairs when Anna grabbed Fritz's arm.

"Here's the game plan," she told him in a harsh whisper. "We've got the whole floor to ourselves. I'll go off with Kristoff for a while, then you tell Elsa you love her more than anything in the whole world and you wanna grow old together."

"What-? But, um-" Fritz gulped, his face no less redder than before. "Princess Anna, uh... Elsa told me she doesn't want to date anyone, but... she's been acting funny around me lately... Do... Do you really think I have a chance with her?"

"Uh..." Anna met the boy's eyes. They seemed to be wavering between eternal, blissful joy and endless, crushing despair. "Yes. Definitely," said Anna. "I mean, Elsa doesn't want to admit it to herself, but she's got to like you. Why else would she invite you here? Why else would she be blushing and tripping over her words so much?"

"Yeah! You're right!" Fritz's face lit up. "I... I'm gonna do it this time. I'm gonna do it!"

"Go for it!" Anna gave Fritz a reassuring pat on the arm just as the group reached the top of the stairs.

Before them now was an enormous room with countless hallways branching off every which way, and every inch of the walls was lined with portraits of every shape and size.

"Gee, it looks really easy to get lost in this place," said Anna. "Let's use the buddy system! I'll stay with Kristoff. We'll go check out the pictures over _this _way, and you two can check out the ones over _there._ We'll cover more ground that way. C'mon, Kristoff-"

"Anna!" Before the couple could scurry off, Elsa grabbed her sister's arm and hissed, "Don't act like I don't know what you're up to!"

"Why, Elsa, I don't know what you mean," Anna whispered back, her lips twisting upwards. "I simply want to spend some quality time with my boyfriend. Having a boyfriend is so wonderful, isn't it?"

Elsa let out an indignant huff, but she was powerless to stop Anna from taking Kristoff's hand and leading him away.

As soon as they were safely out of earshot, Kristoff said, "Y'know, you really shouldn't have done that, Anna."

"Why not?" laughed Anna, turning to examine a portrait of reindeer playing cards around a table. "Fritz is about to confess his feelings! They need privacy."

"Oh yeah?" Kristoff raised an eyebrow. "And if he didn't do it the last dozen times you tried to make him, what makes you think he'll suddenly have the spine this time?"

"Don't be such a pessimist," scoffed Anna. "I bet they're already smooching by now."

* * *

Fritz and Elsa were standing shoulder-to-shoulder, about a foot apart. Fritz cleared his throat loudly. Elsa did likewise. Then they both turned their heads in opposite directions.

"The, um, artwork has been very... _interesting_ so far," said Elsa.

"Uh, yeah, yeah!" sputtered Fritz. "I just hadn't expected it to be so... uh..."

"Unusual?"

"Yeah. Unusual."

Elsa stared at the wallpaper while Fritz tried to act like he wasn't stealing glances towards Venus emerging from the sea.

* * *

"What do you _mean_ I'm overbearing?" yelled Anna. "_I'm not the least bit overbearing!_"

"Don't get mad! Don't get mad!" said Kristoff, cringing. "I'm just saying, if Fritz likes Elsa, that's _his_ business, and you shouldn't be trying to pressure him about it."

"Sorry, sorry..." Anna forced herself to take some steady breaths. "But Kristoff, Fritz _wants _me to help him. I mean, he'd neverconfess to Elsa if he was left on his own. He'd just keep bottling up his feelings forever until he exploded."

"Yeah, that's another thing," said Kristoff. "Am I the only one who thinks Fritz might be obsessed with Elsa to an, err, unhealthy degree?"

"But that's what makes it romantic!"

"Yeah, well, 'romantic' and 'reality' don't always overlap," said Kristoff flatly. "I bet Hans was really'romantic' when he asked you to marry him."

"Fritz is_ not_ a crazy murderer in disguise!" said Anna. "At least, I don't _think _he is..."

"I'm not saying __that___._But, I mean, what does this guy _do_ with his life?" Kristoff sighed. "Fritz's self-esteem strikes me as somewhere just north of nonexistent. It sounds to me like if anything, Elsa's done this kid the most good just by being his friend." He put his hands on her shoulders. "And I think _you_ need to be his friend, too, not just his wingman, okay?"

"Y'know what?" Anna smiled at him. "You're right." She leaned in for a hug. "I'm lucky my boyfriend is friends with love experts. I don't know what I'd do without you."

"Oh, I'm sure you'd manage _somehow_," Kristoff smirked.

"But I still think you're being too pessimistic," Anna added. "I mean, you never know. People are weird. Maybe Elsa really _does _love Fritz?"

* * *

Elsa hated Fritz! How could he do this to her? It wasn't fair! All she'd wanted was a friend – someone she could be around and feel comfortable with – and now she had to constantly check herself to make sure she wasn't "leading him on."

And the worst part was the doubt. She didn't know for a fact that Fritz felt anything towards her. Elsa might have been right in the first place – He could simply be a sweet, sensitive boy she'd befriended. And that meant if Elsa said anything about him liking her, it would make things even _more_ awkward.

And it didn't help that exposure to these ridiculousportraits had debunked Elsa's vague hopes that he was gay...

"We can go somewhere else if these pictures are making you uncomfortable," said Elsa.

"Yeah! I mean, uh, we can go somewhere else, but I'm not uncomfortable," said Fritz. "I mean, uh, I _am_ uncomfortable! I mean, I'm _supposed_ to be uncomfortable, and I am, and that's normal. But just because of the pictures. Nothing else is making me un-un-un-"

"Yeah, me neither," said Elsa. "Let's get out of here."

The two of them walked to the far end of the hall, where the portraits wore a great deal more clothing.

"That's better." Elsa tried to smile.

_But what if it looks like you're flirting with him?_

The smile went away. "So..."

_Don't just sit there. Say something! Make light conversation._

"I can't say I've seen many of _those_ kinds of portraits before..."

_Why are you__still __talking about those?_

"We had a lot of artwork in our castle, but our parents never allowed anything like _that_ in while there were little girls running around..." Her voice trailed off.

_Well, you've done it now. You brought up _them_._

There was silence.

"They... sound like nice people," said Fritz.

"They were."

More silence.

"What about yourparents?" asked Elsa. "Were they – _Oh wait_, your father left! _I'm_ _sorry__!_"

"My... momma was nice," said Fritz. "_Is_ nice! She _is_ nice."

Elsa took a deep breath. This wasn't as hard as she was making it. She just had to say something normal. "I'm glad you came with me here."

Fritz nodded slowly. "Thanks." Then he stared at his shoes and muttered something under his breath.

"Sorry?" frowned Elsa.

"Uh, nothing, nothing!"

"Oh."

This wasn't so bad. She could do this. All Elsa had to do was have a normal conversation with Fritz, and that would prove Anna wrong. It would prove Fritz was nothing but a friend. A friend who would gladly accompany Elsa on outings without seeing it as some absurd sign of affection.

* * *

Elsa was showing Fritz so manysigns of affection, he could hardly believe it! At first, he wasn't totally sure his "secret crush" theory was true, but now that Anna had reassured him, he'd never been more certain of anything in his life. How had he not picked up on Elsa's feelings for him sooner? Just look at the way she was trembling beside him. Look how red her cheeks were getting!

"We can go somewhere else if these pictures are making you uncomfortable," said Elsa.

"Yeah! I mean, uh, we can go somewhere else, but I'm not uncomfortable," Fritz blathered. "I mean, uh, I _am_ uncomfortable! I mean, I'm _supposed_ to be uncomfortable, and I am, and that's normal. But just because of the pictures. Nothing else is making me un-un-un-"

"Yeah, me neither," said Elsa. "Let's get out of here."

Elsa led Fritz across the hall, but even without those portraits, neither of them seemed super comfortable.

"That's better." Elsa smiled for about a second, but then it was gone. Aww, she was shy. "So... I can't say I've seen many of _those_ kinds of portraits before..."

Oh, what a relief, Elsa wasn't taking that nudity very seriously. That made Fritz feel a whole lot better.

"We had a lot of artwork in our castle, but our parents never allowed anything like _that_ in while there were little girls running around..."

Wow, her parents sounded like nice people.

"They... sound like nice people," said Fritz.

"They were."

Wait, weren't they dead?

"What about yourparents?" asked Elsa. "Were they – _Oh wait_, your father left! _I'm_ _sorry__!_"

Wow, Elsa had just made the same slip-up. She was the _queen_, and she'd just made the same social blunder as the dorky guard. They were made for each other!

"My... momma was nice," said Fritz. He gave himself a mental kick. "_Is_ nice! She _is_ nice."

_Just say it!_ said Fritz's mental projection of Anna. _Just say it, you fool!_"

"I... I..."

"I'm glad you came with me here," said Elsa.

Fritz could feel his heart warming the inside of his chest. "Thanks." He took a deep breath and bowed his head. "I love you, by the way."

"Sorry?"

"Uh, nothing, nothing!"

"Oh."

* * *

"Hey, look at this one!" By now, the thought of Fritz and Elsa had all but left Anna's mind. She was too busy leading Kristoff around the halls, pointing out anything that caught her eye. This time it was a painting of a pair of toddlers in sun dresses standing by a staircase. "They're just like me and Elsa."

"Are you sure?" grinned Kristoff. "The younger one looks awfully well-behaved..."

"Guess you're right," Anna laughed. "If it was me, I'd be sliding down the railing by now."

"You slid down stair railings?"

"What? It gets you downstairs quicker." For a second, Anna's eyes were glazed over with nostalgia. "I do it all the time. I mean, when we were kids, I'd get Elsa to do it, too, but it took some persuading. I guess she's always been like that, even before, y'know... she got locked away..."

"Been like what?" asked Kristoff.

"Y'know, scared to try new things," said Anna. "I'd always be the one coming up with some game to play or finding some new food to eat, and then I'd have to beg her to try it with me. But then, when she'd finally cave it, she'd have a blast. If it wasn't for me, she wouldn't know about half the stuff she loved doing. I got her to ride our bike inside and eat way too much chocolate, and I invented snow-pillars-"

"What's that?"

"Oh, it's this game where I jumped, and then she made a big pillar of snow to catch me, and then I jumped again, and she made a higher one and then a higher one and a higher one. And Elsa was scared at first, but I convinced her, and then we played it all the-"

Anna stopped mid-sentence.

"Anna?" Kristoff had honestly been more preoccupied looking at portraits, but now he turned back towards her. "What's wrong?"

Anna had turned away, hiding her face from sight. "Nothing." She glanced down the hallway. "Hey, let's go back to Fritz and Elsa, okay?"

"Yeah, sure."

The couple found found them over at the far edge of the floor, but they had to wade through a flood of scandalous paintings to get there.

("Yikes!" said Kristoff.

"Is that a_ swan?_" said Anna.)

It didn't escape Anna's notice that Fritz and Elsa weren'tcurrently making out passionately, holding hands, or even standing in each other's proximity.

"Having fun, you two?" Anna grinned. "Time to swap buddies, okay?"

"Wha-?"

Anna made off with Fritz before he even knew what was happening, leaving Elsa with Kristoff.

"Have you told her yet?" Anna immediately asked.

"Well, no, not yet," said Fritz."

"Good, good. Look, we need to talk." Anna took a deep breath. "Fritz, I just wanted to say... I'm sorry."

"Sorry?" Fritz blinked. "Sorry for what?"

"I don't know," said Anna. "For being bossy? For smuggling chocolate ice cream past you? For giving you a terrible haircut? I've... I've been pretty annoying, haven't I?"

"What? You don't have to apologize for anything!" said a surprised Fritz. "I... I'm glad you did that stuff. I mean, before you knew about it, I honestly thought being with Elsa was going to stay a daydream forever... I never thought I could actually _talk_ to her... I never thought I could be her _friend_... But now... _I think she likes me__!_"

From Anna's face, you'd think it was Christmas morning. "_Really?_ I mean, uh, yeah! Of course she likes you! I knew it all along." She gave him a big grin. "But whatever happens, Fritz, Elsa said you were her friend... and, well, I wanted to make sure you knew you're mine, too. Okay?"

Fritz looked like a different person. Without his trademark stutter and look of utter terror frozen on his face, he was virtually unrecognizable. "Okay. Thanks, Princess Anna."

* * *

The pictures in this region of the gallery weren't particularly interesting. They were mostly gorgeous landscapes. Nothing worth describing.

Kristoff and Elsa stared intently at them.

"Hey, Elsa?" spoke up Kristoff. "Thanks for bringing me along. It's, uh, pretty neat to see all this high-brow stuff, but, uh... I can't help but notice Anna's tangled up in some... _drama _concerning you and Fritz."

"Oh!" Elsa seemed taken aback. "That's nothing you have to worry about, Kristoff."

"Yeah, well, if I see Anna sucking other people into her crazy world, I take it upon myself to straighten things out," shrugged Kristoff. "It seems Anna's decided for you that you need a boyfriend."

Elsa let out a sigh. "_She_ enjoys being with _you_, and she wants what's best for _me_, but... I really don't want to be in a sandwich-"

"What?"

"_Relationship___.__ Honestly, I don't know why Anna's so focused on romance. It's not something... _I've_ ever felt."

"It's not that hard," said Kristoff. "Anna was alone for a long time, and people don't like being alone."

"I guess I can understand that..." Elsa took a deep breath. "But I _know_ Anna's obsessed with romance. I wish I could tell so easily with Fritz. Does he really have a crush on me, or am I seeing things that aren't there?"

"There's nothing stopping you from just askinghim, y'know." Kristoff put on a small smirk. "And if he really does love you, he'll respect your wishes, right?"

"Yeah." Elsa looked thoughtful. "I guess you're right..."

It was at this point that Anna and Fritz returned to them.

"Bathroom break time!" announced Anna, grabbing Elsa's arm. "C'mon, Elsa, help me find the ladies' room."

Elsa was quickly led away from the boys and dragged back into the hall of nudes.

"Fritz hasn't said anythingto me, if that's what you want to know," Elsa said tightly.

"What? Oh, no, Elsa, I..." Anna shut her eyes. "I just wanted to ask you... when I've been bugging you about dating Fritz, I... I haven't been _seriously_ _bothering_ you, have I?"

"Maybe a little bit," said Elsa, folding her arms.

"I can't help it, Elsa!" said Anna. "I _really _want you to go out with him."

"Well, I _really _don't want to," huffed Elsa. "But it's... not thatimportant, Anna. I dealt with Mary – I think I can handle Fritz. Why do you ask?"

"I..." Anna's eyes met the floor. "I hadn't thought about it before. Even after getting my memories back, I was too distracted, but... Elsa, everything that's happened to us... It's kind of myfault, isn't it? I was the one who thought it was a good idea to play with your magic in the middle of the night. I-"

"Stop right there." Elsa grabbed her hand. "You were _five_, Anna. It was an accident. I don't want to _ever _hear you blame yourself again. Okay?"

Anna nodded slowly. "Okay. All I'm trying to say is... I'm sorry for all the times I've been too pushy... and... for doing stupid stuff like trying to marry a stranger and-"

"It's all forgiven, Anna," Elsa said with a patient smile. "And you _have_ bothered me about Fritz, but... Well, you're my sister. It's what sisters do, isn't it?"

"Yeah..." Anna wiped her eyes. Her tears had been quelled preemptively.

* * *

Kristoff had a feeling Elsa and Anna were not _actually_ taking a bathroom break. Oy, since when did dating Anna become synonymous with "teen drama?" First they broke up, then she kissed another guy, and now she was trying to hook said guy up with her sister. Kristoff was beginning to miss the good old days when Anna used his lute as a bludgeon and set fire to his sled...

Fritz was currently staring at one of the boring landscapes. The gigantic stomach ulcer with a person wrapped around it was practically shaking with anticipation, and his eyes kept darting towards the hallway Elsa had vanished down.

"So," spoke up Kristoff, "I hope Anna hasn't been driving you _too _crazy?"

"Oh, yeah, uh, right!" Fritz yelped. "Sorry again about the, uh, thing we did!"

"Don't mention it," said Kristoff. "I mean, really, _don't _mention it. Let's all just forget it ever happened."

"Yeah. Okay." Fritz nodded feebly.

"Hey, uh, Fritz," Kristoff added. "I guess you really _do_ like Queen Elsa? That's not just Anna going into a frenzy at the prospect of romance?"

"Yeah... I do," said Fritz. "I... I'm gonna tell her how I feel. I mean... that's what _you_ did with Princess Anna, isn't it?"

"Yeah," nodded Kristoff, "and, trust me, I felt exactly how you're feeling right now, but you've gotta remember, it's really not that big a deal. I mean, you like her, and either she likes you back or she doesn't, and that's all there is to it. You can't treat it like this super important thing that's going to ruin you if you don't get your way – That's not fair to Elsa. You follow me?"

"Yeah," nodded Fritz. "I understand."

* * *

Fritz understood... Kristoff was _nuts!_ Not that Fritz expected any better from a _reindeer-befriender_. Of course whether or not Elsa liked him was a super important thing! It was the most important thing of Fritz's entire life! On his own, Fritz was nothing, just a worthless dork who'd failed at everything he'd ever tried. But if the queen of Arendelle, A.K.A. the greatest, most perfect being to ever walk the planet, loved Fritz, then that made Fritz special. It made him important. It made him _not a loser._

Ha! He wished his dad could see Fritz now, moments away from glory! Here Queen Elsa came, walking straight towards him from down the hallway. In another second, Fritz was going to confess his undying love for her, and Elsa would love him back, and then they'd get married and have kids and spend the rest of their lives in blissful matrimony. It was _real_. It was _happening_.

This was _it._


	43. Not Romantically

_**Author's Note: **__**Frozen Wight**_**, the only Frozen fanfic to give you crude sexual humor and classy art humor all at the same time!**

* * *

Elsa knew what was going to happen. It didn't exactly take a prophet to see it. Fritz was going to make some horrendously awkward confession of love to her, and Elsa would even more horrendously awkwardly turn him down, and then things would be horrendously awkward between them forever despite their ill-conceived attempts to remain friends.

Even now, as they both pretended to be fascinated by a bizarre portrait of reindeer playing cards around a table, Elsa could practically hear the words hovering on the tip of Fritz's lips. It was coming any second now. Elsa let out a heavy sigh, unsure if she appreciated Anna and Kristoff for giving them privacy or resented them for abandoning Elsa to deal with this fanatical romantic all alone.

Elsa wondered for the umpteenth time just why on earth a person would be so interested in her. And why did it seem like everyone on earth had this deep-seated desire for a romantic partner except Elsa? Was she normal? Was there something wrong with her? Elsa had never even given it much thought until the day her sister dragged some stranger before her and proudly announced their marriage. Actually, maybe that was no different than this. Elsa at least somewhat understood why Anna had wanted romantic love. Prince Hans had quite possibly been the first new human being Anna had met in years. Maybe Fritz was the same?

"I... uh..." After a minute of strangled choking noises, Fritz managed to say, "I like your hair!"

"Thank you." Elsa brought a hand to her braid. It _was_ nice hair, she supposed, but she'd worn it this way for ages now. She hardly saw what was so special about- Wait. This was his attempt at flirting, wasn't it?

"It's very... hairy- uh, hairlike! It is hair! I like it!"

Elsa suppressed the urge to wince. Alright, time to cut the kid a break and take the reins.

"I like these paintings," she said. "This one is... unique."

Fritz seemed unnerved at the remark. He drew back, eyeing the painting warily.

"Is something wrong?"

"Nothing," said Fritz. "They're just r-r-re... rein..."

"Reindeer?"

Fritz shuddered. "Yeah. Those."

Elsa looked bemused. "What's so scary about them?"

"What's _not_ scary about them?" said Fritz, a manic gleam overtaking his eyes. "They're big and mean! They can smell fear! If you drop your guard while you're herding them, they don't hesitate to attack! And they've got these huge antlers and hooves and- and-" He stopped to take some heavy breaths.

"It's just a picture, Fritz." Elsa put a hand on his shoulder. She didn't care if he misconstrued that as an act of affection. This boy had just broken down at _a_ _picture of reindeer –_ He needed all the comfort he could get. "I didn't know you herded reindeer."

"Uh, yeah, well, my dad was the real herder." Fritz tugged absently on the brightly-colored wool he was wearing. "My momma was a city girl from Arendelle. They met one day, and now, y'know, here I am."

"Why did you stop herding?" asked Elsa.

"I was bad at it," said Fritz. "After my dad walked out on us, my momma and I didn't really fit in with the rest of the herders."

"And I suppose being scared of the livestock didn't help?"

Fritz allowed himself a tiny laugh. "Yeah."

Elsa smiled again, but then her face grew stern. "Wasn't it hard, though? Leaving everything you'd ever known and coming here? Don't you miss your family and friends?"

Fritz's eyes met the floor. "Um... Well, I __would___... _if I had any..."

There was a lapse in the conversation.

"But I have you, Your Majesty- I mean, Queen Elsa- I mean, just Elsa! I, um, uh, I've been wanting to say something for a long time."

Elsa shut her eyes. Fritz was a puzzle, and she was trying to put all the pieces together at the last possible minute.

"Elsa, I l-"

"Fritz!" Elsa deliberately interrupted. "Can I ask you a personal question?"

"Uh, yeah." Fritz looked disarmed, but not displeased. "You can ask me anything." He waited for her to speak, his heart fixing to flutter out his chest any second now.

"Fritz..." Elsa took a deep breath. "What was your home life like?"

"I lo- Wait, what?" Yeah, that definitely hadn't been the question he was expecting.

"Fritz, part of the reason I wanted to be your friend," Elsa said slowly, "was because I saw myself in you. I have trouble being around people, too. You saw me. I've been stuttering and blushing just as much as you lately. And, well, I got that way because I grew up isolated." She met his eyes. "I spent years living in fear because I was different and dangerous, and... I was worried maybe you went through something similar."

All his blushing and stuttering had vanished, and now Fritz just looked pale. Elsa was used to Fritz being nervous around her, and in retrospect she knew most of that was out of his misplaced infatuation. But now she was getting the impression that, for once, he was nervous for a different reason.

It took Fritz another minute to form a coherent sentence. "It's- It's not the same. I'm not like you. _You_ never _deserved_ any of the stuff that happened to you. You were miserable all your life, but you were actually this beautiful amazing person underneath. I really _am _a loser."

"_Fritz_," Elsa said with equal parts firmness and pity, "I told you, you're _not_."

"You're wrong. I _am._ Of course I am! I can't even... can't even tell you I... " His voice trailed off.

Elsa released his hands and took a step back. "Fritz... You don't have to," she said. "I know."

Fritz blinked. "Y-You know?"

Elsa nodded. "It was getting a little obvious, really."

"You know _what__?_" Fritz asked in a tone of voice that implied he knew exactly what.

Elsa gave a patient smile. "It's okay, Fritz. You have nothing to be ashamed of. The way you feel is completely normal. Apparently, I'm an extremely attractive person."

There was silence.

"Fritz? _Fritz?_"

Luckily, Elsa impulsively made a big, soft pile of snow on the floor, or else Fritz would've gotten a pretty nasty bump on his head.

* * *

"He _fainted__?_" It was hard to tell if Anna was concerned or delighted. "He seriously_ fainted__?_"

"I just told him I knew, and he toppled over," said Elsa. "It was a little scary, actually."

The sisters and boyfriend had moved to the mansion's living room, where Fritz had been deposited on a sofa. He'd stayed out like a light even after Kristoff hauled him down the stairs.

"Maybe he has a medical problem?" guessed Kristoff.

"Yeah," said Anna, "or maybe Elsa's so hot that she makes boys faint!"

"I think Fritz just let himself get too stressed," said Elsa. "If he doesn't wake up soon, we'd better get a doctor."

"It's a good thing you didn't kiss him," said Anna. "His head would've popped right off his body and gone zooming around the room."

Suddenly, Fritz made a low groaning noise and rolled over on the couch, though he failed to regain consciousness.

"Oh, Elsa, I think the sound of your voice is making him blush!" Anna let out a happy sigh. "Are you _sure_ you don't want to date him? He's like a little lost puppy that's followed you home. You can't cast him back out on the streets!"

Elsa rolled her eyes. "That's the problem. Even if I didwant to date, Fritz is a puppy, and I'm a..." She grasped for words. "...a grown dog."

"Well, you're gonna wanna break that to him really, really, _really _gently," said Kristoff. "At this rate, if you tell him you don't want to date him, he's gonna go into a coma."

"You're right," Elsa said thoughtfully. "This is going to require some delicacy."

"In that case, Anna should probably leave the room."

"_Hey!_"

* * *

Fritz slowly opened his eyes. His head was spinning so badly, it took him a second to realize where he was. Oh, that was right, he was still at the art exhibition, only now he was slumped over on a sofa... and seated in the chair across from him was Queen Elsa!

Elsa was sitting, legs crossed, eyes fixed on him, still in that pretty dark blue dress covered in frost. As soon as Fritz rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, she gave him one of her radiant smiles.

Huh, seeing her reminded Fritz of this horrible nightmare he'd had where Elsa knew his dark secret.

"What happened?" he asked groggily.

"You fainted," said Elsa. "I think you're letting yourself get overexcited, Fritz."

"Overexcited?" frowned Fritz. "About what?"

Elsa shifted in her seat. "About your crush on me."

"_About my whaaaaaaat?_"

"Don't pass out! Don't-"

* * *

Fritz slowly opened his eyes. His head wasn't just spinning, it was whirling like a hurricane. The first thing in his line of sight was Queen Elsa, who gave a start the instant his eyes opened.

"Hello, Fritz," Elsa said as slowly and softly as possible. "How are you feeling?"

"Not good." Fritz brought a palm to his forehead. "Ugh, what's going on...?"

"Here." Elsa leaned forward to hand him a steaming cup. "Have some tea."

"I'm not really thirsty-"

"_I insist_."

Elsa would not relent until Fritz had drunk about half the cup. Then she forced him to take some deep breaths before saying, "Fritz, we need to talk."

"About what?"

"About your feelings for- _Don't pass out! Don't pass out!_"

"I'm okay! I'm okay!" Fritz took another hearty sip. "I... I think I'm good."

"Are you sure?"

Fritz finished the cup. "Yeah." Fritz finished the cup, then took an extremely deep breath. "How long have you known?"

"I only pieced it together last night," said Elsa. "Anna had been pestering me about dating, and she'd been spending a lot of time with you, and I put two and two together."

"Oh." Fritz sighed. "I should have known this was Anna's fault."

Elsa chuckled. "Yeah, she can be a handful."

Fritz looked up at her, his eyes wide and hopeful. "And then, once you realized it, you... you invited me here... and you've been stuttering and acting awkward... and-"

"Fritz." Elsa smiled at him, but it was the bad kind of smile people only give when they feel sorry for you. "How old are you?"

And that was the exact moment Fritz realized this conversation wasn't going to end with Elsa kissing him.

"Uh..." His eyes met the ceiling. "That's funny. I think I'm exactly the same age as you."

Elsa gave him an amused glare. "And what age is that?"

Fritz looked like a rat in a trap. "Uh... Eighteen?"

Elsa laughed. "Good answer, but I'm twenty-two. Now how old are you really?"

"Seven- uh, eighteen!" squeaked Fritz.

Elsa folded her arms.

"I just had a birthday," said Fritz. "And I'm having another one really soon!"

She raised an eyebrow.

Fritz bowed his head. "Seventeen. Barely."

"That's what I thought," said Elsa. "Fritz, I'm sorry if I ever did anything to lead you to believe otherwise, but like I told you last night, I'm just not interested in having a relationship with _anybody_."

Despite Fritz's best efforts, his eyes were watering. "Ever?"

Elsa exhaled slowly. "Please try and understand. I've spent over half my life alone. A year ago, I never thought I'd be able to... to do _this_." She put a hand to his cheek. "I can't promise you I'm never going to change my mind a year, five years, or ten years down the road, but as of now, I don't want an intimate relationship. Okay?"

"Okay." Fritz's eyes followed her hand as she withdrew it from his face.

"And even if I did, I'm the queen," added Elsa. "I have responsibilities, and anybody who married me would share them. So if I did reciprocate your feelings, the relationship wouldn't be able to goanywhere unless you're planning on becoming 'King Fritz,' and that's not a burden I'd wish on you."

"K-King?" Fritz looked genuinely shocked. "I hadn't thought about that before."

Fritz flinched spectacularly when Elsa started laughing. He'd honestly thought he'd go his whole life without ever seeing that particular reaction from her.

"What?"

"Oh, Fritz, I'm- _ha ha ha_\- I'm sorry!" Elsa managed to say. "Before you, I really thought my throne was the _only _reason anyone was interested in me. You can't tell me you've seriously never considered it?"

"I never thought this through _at all_," admitted Fritz. "It was always just an idle fantasy. I never seriously thought it was going to happen, but then Anna gave me false confidence..."

"So you really just like me for my _personality_, then?" Elsa smirked.

Fritz's heart skipped a beat. "Uh, yes. Personality."

Elsa laughed again. "It's alright, Fritz. Remember what I wore that week after the rebellion? Before I could control my powers, that's what I wore all the time."

"Really?"

"It was for the same reason I wore gloves – to cover myself up. To keep my powers in check. And so, when I finally threw off the gloves, the dress had to go, too, and my magic provided somehow. And whatever Anders thinks, I wasn't _trying_ to attract..." She took a breath. "..._your kind _of attention, but... I don't mind it."

Now Fritz's face was getting all red, and that made Elsa's face red, and her red face made his even redder, and so on and so forth. "You... You don't?"

Elsa laughed, but this time it was less genuine and more nervous. "Well, I can't say I appreciate people like Samson, but there's always going to be his kind in the world. And the way I dress means something to me, so as long as it's from... from people like _you_, it's nice to be noticed for a change. Just don't go overboard with the gawking, okay?"

Fritz made the same laugh. "It's _way _too late for that."

Elsa was fiddling with her braid again. "You... You really mean that, right? Not just you, but Anna and Gerda and everyone else who compliments my appearance? You're not just trying to butter me up?"

Fritz looked at her like she was crazy. "Are you _blind__?_"

"No, I've just always thought I was... a little too pale..."

"Right now, you're more red than pale."

There was more nervous laughter – from Elsa because Fritz had had the audacity to say that, and from Fritz because _holy cow, Fritz had had the audacity to say that_. There must have been something in the air because Fritz was saying all sorts of strange things he never thought he'd blurt out.

"Elsa, I love you!"

And just like that, the laughter came to an end.

Elsa turned her head, hiding her face from sight. "Fritz, I want to be your _friend_. Don't make this harder on yourself."

_You just had to go and say that, didn't you, idiot?_ The self-loathing center of Fritz's brain was flaring up again. _You can't help yourself! __Y__ou've got an irresistible compulsion to dash your every small chance at happiness against the rocks!_

"But... but Elsa, you..." Fritz heart was thumping against his chest so hard, it hurt. "You _paid attention _to me. Just a couple minutes ago, you were worried about my... my home life." Dang it, he couldn't hold it back. Fritz hid his face in his hands. "Nobody's ever done that for me before."

"Of course I'm worried, Fritz." Elsa put her face back into view. She was smiling. "You're my friend. I care about you."

"But you don't love me?"

"Well..." Elsa took his hand. "Not romantically."

* * *

Anna barged into the living room just in time to see Elsa and Fritz sharing a tight hug.

"_Ooooooh_, isn't this cozy?"

"Anna, give them some privacy!" Kristoff ran in after her. "Ugh, I miss Sven. He's _way _better behaved than you."

"No, no, it's alright." Elsa ended the hug and turned towards them. "We're done talking. Fritz and I are staying friends."

"And you're okay after all that fainting?" Kristoff asked Fritz.

"Yeah, uh... I've gotta to use the bathroom. Be right back." Fritz promptly fled the room.

For a moment, Elsa, Anna, and Kristoff stood in silence. Then Anna turned to her sister. "You realize he's in there bawling his eyes out, right?"

Elsa shifted uncomfortably. "He's not going to get over me overnight. But Fritz clearly has some problems in his life, and we're going to help him get to a better place emotionally." She gave Anna a stern glare. "And you are absolutely _not_ going to tease him or give him false hope. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yeah, okay." Anna reluctantly nodded. "But I still say you two would be having _way _more fun right now if you'd kissed him..."

* * *

Fritz wasn't bawling his eyes out. He was just curled up on the lavatory floor, blowing his nose on his parka-thing, that was all. No big deal... No big...

_Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!_ Fritz would never... _sniff_... never love another woman. Why did Elsa have to be so nice? Why couldn't she have just broken his heart? Thrown him out of Arendelle in disgust? Frankly, Fritz had been expecting her to do that from the moment his eyes first lingered on her hips a second too long. But instead she'd... she'd _accepted_ him... She'd... _Ohhhh_, it was too much for his poor heart to take!

Now Fritz was doomed to a lifetime of standing in her wondrous presence, admiring Elsa, but never... never kissing her... never holding her... never... never... _never singing a romantic duet with her! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!_

He probably would've stayed in that bathroom the rest of his life if the sound of screaming hadn't startled him into action.

"_You__!_"

"What's going on? What's going on?" Fritz dashed out just in time to see Elsa, Anna, and Kristoff giving a death glare to a man with slicked-back hair and a snazzy dress jacket.

"Agh! T-The royal sisters of Arendelle," said the man, sweat dripping down his brow. "I thought you were upstairs."

"We know you!" Anna yelled. "You may have ditched your skeevy overcoat and changed your haircut, but you're that peddler who painted those gross pictures of Elsa and me!"

"So what?" snapped the peddler. "I paid the fine. I'm a free man."

"What are you doing here?" asked Elsa.

"What do you mean, 'What am I doing here?'" grumbled the peddler. "This is my _house_!"

All three of them gaped in shock.

"Don't look so surprised!" said the man. "I'll have you know I'm the chief art curator of Arendelle's official artistic community! In fact, I hand-picked every last painting in this exhibition."

"That explains a lot," muttered Elsa.

"But if you're a rich guy with his own mansion, why were you selling smutty pictures on the streets?" asked Kristoff.

"I was selling _high-concept art _on the down-low because, uh..." The peddler-slash-curator cleared his throat. "My ideas aren't always widely accepted in the mainstream artistic community."

"No kidding," said Elsa. "So are we to assume you've learned your lesson, and you're not producing any more artwork that depicts the monarchy in an unflattering light?"

"Uh..." The curator took a step backwards. "Not in an _unflattering _light..."

"So then you'd have nothing to hide if I wanted to inspect in _there__?_" Elsa pointed to a nearby door with a sign over it reading "Private Gallery, DO NOT ENTER."

The curator paled. "No, wait, Your Majesty, I can explain-" But he couldn't stop Elsa from throwing the door open.

Elsa stood in the doorway for a long while, staring. Eventually, she said, "Wow, I really didn't think you'd find a way to offend me even more than the last time, but you managed."

"Oh, come on, everyone loves a redemption story!" said the curator.

Anna peeked inside, then nearly retched. "HANS? You painted pictures of Elsa getting it on with HANS?"

"Whoa!" Kristoff whistled. "There's so many of them!"

Fritz sighed and slinked away from the chaos. He wasn't even thinkingabout sneaking a peak this time. He'd learned his lesson, and besides, right now the lastthing he wanted to see was a reminder of Elsa's supreme beauty. He walked further down the halls, the sound of fighting voices growing fainter and fainter:

"I'm starting to think Anna was right before. Let's see if we can't get you some jail time, seeing as you're a repeat offender."

"No, wait, I can't go back to the brig! I can make this up to you! Please, I'll do anything! Anything you want!"

* * *

"Your Majesty!" A surprised Gerda watched the long line of servants hauling new portraits into the gallery. "How could you afford so many paintings?"

"We got a _great_ discount," said Anna smugly.

* * *

A short while later, the royal sisters stood in the center of the newer, frostier gallery, admiring the countless pictures now lining the walls.

"Are you _sure _you're happy with these, Anna?" asked Elsa, eyeing the one with the reindeer playing cards

"Yeah, why?" said Anna, who was busy mimicking the poses of the people in the paintings to make sure they were suitable for her purposes.

"They just seem a bit... unorthodox." Specifically, the gallery was full of only the most surreal paintings on the market. "I mean, look at this one." She pointed to one of the landscapes. "It's so blurry!"

"It's _impressionist_, Elsa."

"Does that mean the painter wasn't wearing his glasses?" Elsa asked flatly.

"Well, _I_ like it..."

"And this one's not even a portrait!" Elsa glared at a small, shiny scrap of paper that had been wedged into an otherwise empty frame. The paper seemed to be an exact, black-and-white recreation of Anna with a goofy expression on her face.

"Oh, that one's awesome!" said Anna. "There was this guy at the mansion, and he had this box, and it made this big bright flash of light, and then he dunked the paper in these weird chemicals and BAM! Perfect painting of me!"

"That's not a portrait," said Elsa. "That's a photograph."

"So? Is there some rule saying we can't put it in the gallery?"

"Alright, Anna," laughed Elsa, shaking her head. "Whatever makes you happy." Then her eyes fell on another frame. "Oh, this one's nice. We used to have one of these before the fire, didn't we?"

"Yeah," said Anna, running over to the portrait. "It's another copy of _The Swing._"

"Wait." Elsa did a double-take. "Did our old one have that man hiding in the bushes down there?"

"What m- _Is he looking up her dress_?"

"You don't know that. Maybe the perspective is just-?"

"_My childhood is ___ruined____!__" Anna made a theatrical gasp of horror, then turned to give her sister a smirk. "Speaking of uncomfortable truths, how's your little lost puppy doing?"

"Fritz is holding together," laughed Elsa.

"Have you realized you're secretly in love with him yet?"

"What did we say about teasing, Anna?"

"You said not to tease _Fritz__!_" said Anna. "You didn't say anything about not teasing _you_!"

Elsa groaned. "Well, you can forget it. I think I would know if I had feelings for him."

"Are you sure?" grinned Anna. "You'd never really met a boy before Fritzy... How would you know what it feels like to like one?"

"I'm not having any more of this from you. I'm sorry to have to do this, Anna, but... the next time I go somewhere with Fritz, _you're_ not invited." And with that, Elsa stormed out of the gallery.

Anna stood by herself for a minute, watching Elsa vanish down the castle hallway. Anna smiled to herself, then turned to the reindeer-portrait.

"She's head over heels for him," she told it.


	44. A True Hero

A pair of guards stood, same posture, facing the same way, horizontally aligned, on opposite sides of the palace gates, staring ahead, stone still. The queen's orders were very clear – The gates were never closing again. Which meant commoners could wander into the courtyard at their own leisure. Which meant someone had to keep an eye out to make sure some random, ax-wielding crazy person didn't run through. Hence the pair of guards standing there with perfectly blank looks on their face.

Minutes passed.

"It's still possible," spoke up the one on the left.

"Ugh, are we still talking about this?"

"Come on, man! I mean, look at them! They can't go two minutes without hugging each other! And, like, her true love thawed her frozen heart. What's up with that?"

"Is nothing sacred to you, Henrik?"

"I'm just saying, that must have been some pretty freaky powerful 'true love' to do that, know what I mean?"

"No! They're _sisters_, you sick freak! What, are sisters not allowed to love each other without it being some crazy incestuous affair now? Is that what the world's coming to?"

"But I heard a rumor that-"

"I'm close with _my_ sister! Do you think _I_ want to sleep with _her__?_"

"I don't know. I've never met your-"

"I _don't_, Henrik! _Most_ people _don't_ want to sleep with their sister!"

"But they were separated for years! It bypasses the Westermarck eff-"

"Oh, so you're a psychiatrist now? Gee, when did you get your degree?"

"You don't have to be a jerk about this, Morten..."

"Oh, so _I'm_ the one who _isn't_ comfortable with the idea of incest, and _I'm_ the jerk here?"

"But... But what if I like the idea of the queen being a lesbian? I mean, there's no other girl to pair her with. It makes the most sense to-"

"_Ohhhhh_, you _pooooooor_ baby! Not being able to imagine plausible fictional scenarios involving your favorite lesbian? How do you make it through the day?"

"But I just-"

"No! Y'know what? We are _done_ talking about this."

"But-"

"Nope! It's _over_."

"I was only-"

"Conversation. _Over_."

Several more minutes passed.

"...Okay, but you have to admit it'd be _really_ hot," said the guard on the left.

More minutes passed.

"Yeah," said the guard on the right. "Yeah, it would."

Silence.

The guard on the right let out a yawn. "I know we've had an eternal winter and a rebellion and that zombie-thing and that ice-monster and stuff, but sometimes I wish something would happen to _us_. It's so boring just standing around all day, watching for-"

He was cut off by the ground shaking, followed by a monstrous roar.

"_Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh__!_"

* * *

Elsa collapsed into a library armchair. She didn't care if she was the queen – She needed to slouch. Elsa had hoped taking some time off from queenly duties would help her relax. There was no reason going to an art exhibition should have been as exhausting as battling the wight. Granted, Elsa hadn't actually gone out to town for fun since... well, since ever, but she was reasonably certain it wasn't supposed to feel like another chore to cross off the list.

Elsa was shutting her eyes when she caught the sound of the library door creaking open.

"Oh, Your Majesty, there you are." Without looking, Elsa could tell Gerda was grinning from ear to ear. "Worn out after your date?"

Elsa failed to stifle a groan. "He's just my friend, Gerda."

"Of course, Your Majesty, of course." There was a merciful moment of silence before Gerda added, "He's cute."

"Good for him," said Elsa dryly.

"I'm sorry, please don't get cross, Your Majesty," said Gerda. "It's only, it's so similar to how your parents met. She was just some girl he took in off the streets, and she, well, she thought he was the greatest human being to walk the planet. She was so in love with him, she couldn't even-"

"Yes," cut in Elsa. "I've been told. By every other maid on the staff."

And now, without looking, Elsa could tell Gerda was bowing her head. "My sincerest apologies, Your Majesty. I didn't mean to upset you."

"No, no, I'm sorry," said Elsa, opening her eyes and sitting up straight. "I'm just tired. What made you think it was a date?"

"Olaf told me."

"Oh, of course." Elsa sighed, reluctantly pulled herself out of her armchair, and marched out the library.

* * *

"There you are." Elsa found the snowman in the middle of the courtyard. Or rather, she found a big pile of mush with a carrot in the middle and a flurry cloud above it that had once been the snowman. "What happened?"

"Fritz mutilated me," Olaf said brightly. He no longer had anything resembling a head, so the magic apparently picked a random section of snow to be his mouth. "My kid-friends tried to put me back together, but they got distracted. They said they'd come back for me really soon, though... five hours ago."

"Here, let me help you out, little guy." With a wiggle of her finger, Elsa put Olaf back into his proper shape. "Feeling better?"

Olaf stretched his twig-arms. "Yep, everything's in working order."

"Actually, your carrot looks a little moldy," said Elsa. "You'd better swap it out for a new one soon."

"But I like my nose!" said Olaf. "It takes forever to find one that's just the right shape."

"So is it all interchangeable, then?" Elsa wondered aloud. "What about your arms? Can you swap those out, too?"

"Yeah, why?"

"And you can still move the new arms?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Well, it seems strange. My powers don't really have anything to do with twigs."

"Yeah, why?"

"I guess I always felt the stick-arms were such an important part of you that when you came to life, they _had _to be included."

"Yeah, why?"

"Because- Look, this is getting off-topic." Elsa shook herself out of it. "Why did Fritz knock you out of shape?"

"Oh, he was just mad at me for telling everyone his secret," said Olaf. "Ooh, ooh, that reminds me! I haven't told _you_ his secret yet. Fritz is in love with you!"

Elsa let out a groan. "Not you, too, Olaf. Listen-" She knelt down to meet his coal-eyes. "Even if this isn't a silly crush and Fritz _does _have feelings for me, that doesn't mean I feel the same way about him."

"So? I like it when people are in love," said Olaf. "It's a great way to feel about a person. And if he loves you, it means he doesn't hate you, so that's a win, right?"

Elsa chuckled. "Well, I guess it beats having people be afraid of me because of my powers."

"Love is the best!" Olaf smiled blissfully. "It's almost as great as summer or heat! When someone loves someone else, I just have to tell the whole world about it!"

"Olaf... how many people did you tell, exactly?" asked Elsa. "Because it seems like the entire castle knows."

"Oh, I only told a couple people," said Olaf. "I told some of the guards, and, like, allthe maids, most of the villagers-"

"Well, try not to cause any more trouble, okay?" Elsa gave him a patient smile.

"Trouble?" Olaf said innocently. "What do you mean? We snowmen _never_ cause trouble."

"Your Majesty!" No sooner were the words out of his mouth than a guard burst ran towards them across the courtyard. "Your snowmen are causing trouble!"

* * *

If Olaf was bigger, meaner, and had more pointy things on him, he'd actually be an incredible threat. He'd be immune to impaling, unable to tire or feel pain, able to separate his body for two-pronged attacks, and even resistant to fire so long as he had his flurry cloud with him. It's not the kind of thing one often thinks about. The guards outside the gate, however, were making the discovery.

Most of them had given up trying to slice off the twin snow-monsters' limbs with swords and were now falling back, firing crossbows with little success. They were just considering breaking out the barrels of gunpowder when a horrified queen ran into the courtyard. "What are you _doing__?_"

"With all due respect, my queen, your snowmen are-" A guard ducked just in time to miss having his head lobbed off by an icicle-claw. "-out of control!"

The guards fired another round of crossbow bolts, which accomplished little besides prompting Cloud and Cottonball to release simultaneous shrieks.

"Stop it!" Elsa yelled. "You're only upsetting them more!"

"_Hurt__! __Huuuurt__!_" roared Cloud. A swipe of his massive arm sent no less than three guards tumbling to the ground.

"Hey, little brothers!" Olaf ran up to his siblings, twig-arms outstretched. "How are y-?"

Both snowmen turned to him, opened their mouths, and released a blast of screeching, freezing wind that sent Olaf's pieces flying into the far wall.

"Okay, okay, I can take a hint," said Olaf's disembodied head.

"Cloud! Cottonball! Stop it!" Elsa threw herself between the small army of guards and the smaller, two-person army of snowmen. "It's me!"

Cottonball immediately attempted to decapitate her. Luckily, his arm was caught in a pillar of ice mere inches from Elsa's face.

"That's it!" Elsa switched from a "gentle" motherly voice to a "scolding" one. "If both of you don't calm down this instant, I'm going to have to-" But she was cut off by Cottonball yanking his arm free, sending large chunks of ice flying in all directions. Elsa was forced to dive clear of the debris, giving her snowmen time to turn tail. Elsa watched them run over the bridge and into the surrounding town at an alarming speed. "_No!_"

With a flourish of her arms, Elsa cased Cloud and Cottonball in a thick layer of ice, leaving only their heads exposed. The twins struggled with all their might, but they were sealed tight.

"What happened?" Elsa demanded as she dashed across the bridge. "Why are you attacking people? Why did you leave the North Mountain?"

"_Hurt__! __Hurt__!_" roared Cottonball. A couple pedestrians had gathered up the courage to peek at the imprisoned monsters, but they were sent fleeing again when the beasts released another blizzard from their mouths. Elsa was forced to freeze their faces over, too.

With the snowmen trapped, the villagers regained their nerve.

"Are these _your_ monsters?" yelled a man.

"Yes," said Elsa. "But I didn't order them to attack."

"So you can't control them?"

"No, I-" Elsa let out a groan of frustration. "I don't know. It all happened so fast." She brought her hands to her head. "I need time to think."

Elsa didn't like to think of herself as controlling their minds, but she knew she had influence on her snowmen's behavior. Mary certainly hadn't shared Elsa's respect for free will, and she'd been able to force Marshmallow to attack his friends. Did that mean someone else was controlling her snowmen now? Someone with magic?

But Elsa hardly had time to dwell on it. She couldn't help but notice people were still fleeing, screaming, through the streets despite Cloud and Cottonball's confinement. Oh no. That could only mean one thing. Elsa bolted towards the center of town. Sure enough, there was Marshmallow, and, more troubling, there were also scattered bricks in the street that belonged inside buildings, alongside some overturned statues.

"Oh, Elsa, there you are!" Anna, Kristoff, and Sven were already present, running up to Elsa as soon as she landed.

"What's going on?" asked Elsa.

"We were kind of hoping _you_ knew," said Anna. "Marshmallow just showed up and started going berserk."

"I don't suppose you can magic this problem away, can you?" asked Kristoff.

"With pleasure." Elsa raised her arms.

Marshmallow charged at his creator like a bull, but he hardly got two steps before his whole, snowy body was wrapped in an icy shell.

"There," said Elsa, panting slightly. "All taken care of-"

But then the sound of more shrieks reached her ears. Elsa spun around to find Cloud and Cottonball charging up the street. The twins were coming in fast and decidedly not covered in as much ice as they had been a minute ago.

"What?" Elsa gave a start and quickly refroze them. "How-?"

"_Elsa, behind you!_" screamed Anna.

Elsa turned back around just in time to see a miraculously freed Marshmallow swing a claw right at her. Purely on impulse, she cringed. Elsa only shut her eyes for an instant, but when she opened them... Marshmallow's whole arm was gone.

Elsa started to say, "What just hap-?" But she was drowned out by a deep, booming voice proclaiming:

"Have no fear, citizens of Arendelle! The ice-golems' threat is at an end, thanks to the unprecedented bravery, valiance, dashing, and daring of the amazing, the incredible..."

Elsa, Anna, Kristoff, and Sven all stared, gaping, at the sight before them. That's about the most appropriate response one can have to seeing a horse jump off a rooftop so its rider can stab a snow-monster with his sword in midair. There was a distortion in the air, and then Marshmallow was no more.

"Brandr the Cryomancer-Slayer!"

The pure, white stallion landed with a thud, depositing its rider in the exact center of the town square. The staring and gaping continued as the rider did a backflip off his horse, landing on his feet with his sword raised in a fighting stance. It would've been an incredibly appropriate time for fanfare.

"_You__?_" said a dazed Elsa.

There was no mistaking this tall, dark man in a tall, dark jacket for anything but that painfully stupid detective from before, but now his hat and spectacles were gone, and under his messy black hair was a pair of pointed ears. They added an impish quality to his face, especially when coupled with his green, feline eyes.

The next instant, the ice trapping Cloud and Cottonball shattered, and the snowmen resumed their charge towards the crowd of panicked citizens.

Brandr flashed everybody a smug grin. "Let's say we put these monsters _on ice__?_" There was a blur of movement, then a distortion in the air, and the next instant, Cloud and Cottonball joined their brother inside Brandr's violet crystal blade.

Olympus snorted, then hung his head, embarrassed.

"_I_ thought it was witty," Brandr told him. He paused, as if listening, then said, "Well, that's _your _opinion." Another pause. "_Excuse me__? _Say that again, you hinny-fathering son of a mare- _Oh_, uh..." His attention returned to the crowd. Every last person was staring at him, stupefied. "Hi. I saved you. You're welcome." He bowed low.

"You're that detective guy!" said Anna.

"Detective Brand," said Elsa.

"Brand-_er_, actually." Brandr ended the bow. "And I regret to inform you I'm not _actually_ a detective. I can't even detect my left boot when I'm getting dressed in the morning. And, sadly, Ludvig the Lutefisk and Adele 'the Dame' Dazeem are nothing but figments of my twisted imagination. It was all part of my cunning and elaborate disguise."

As he spoke, Olympus gave Sven a look that said, "Is yours this big an idiot, too?" Sven nodded.

"I was just trying to give you a nudge in the right direction, y'know? And it was more subtle that manifesting before your face and screaming, '_Just go kill the wight, stupid!_' I mean, seriously, your plan was to cower in your castle and wait for the thing to kill a guard? Lame, lame, _lame._"

"You're- You're real," stammered a stunned Elsa. "You're alive."

"Ding-ding-ding, someone give this girl a prize!" Brandr feigned applause. "What gave it away, the ears, the eyes, or the distortions in the fabric of reality caused by my presence?"

"So you're a 'cryomancer-slayer?'" Anna pushed her way through the crowd of extremely confused citizens so she could glare at Brandr face-to-face. "Does that mean you have it in for Elsa?"

"_Elllllsaaaa!_" Brandr put on a whiny voice. "Would it kill you to keep your pet out of my face? Do I let _my_ horse pester _you__?_"

Both Anna and Olympus looked equally offended.

"Anna, get back!" Elsa grabbed her arm and tugged her into the crowd.

"_What do we do?_" Anna asked in a whisper.

"_I don't know_," Elsa whispered back. "_But __he's__ not hurting anybody right now. Let's listen to what he has to say_."

"'_Gee, Brandr, thanks for warning me about the wight_,'" said Brandr in a falsetto. "Oh, gosh, you're welcome, Elsa. I was just looking out for you cuz I'm such a kindhearted guy."

Elsa scowled at him. "Why _did_ you tell me about the wight?"

"I was really bored one day," said Brandr. "Look, can we talk about this later? I'm actually a little busy right now-"

"And how did you get Adrian's sword back?" Elsa added.

Brandr looked blank. "What's an adrian?"

"_That_ sword." Elsa pointed to it, her scowl deepening.

"Ohhhh, you mean _this_ sword!" Brandr held it up like he'd just now realized it was there. "Forged it myself. Wight stole it. Some dummy dropped it in a lake, so I had to unpack the old swim trunks and salvage it. _As I was saying_, I'm a little busy..."

Brandr's catlike eyes skimmed the crowd, which was growing larger and larger as more people came to watch the funny man with the horse. "Hmm, looks like most of you are here. Hello, residents of Arendelle's capital city!" Suddenly, Brandr's voice was perfectly audible throughout the town, as if he was speaking face-to-face with each individual person. The hair on the back of Elsa's neck stood up. Everyone else present had fixed their eyes on the tall, dark man standing in the town square by a smashed fountain.

"For those of you tardy to my little display, here's a recap," said Brandr. "The scary queen sent her monsters to smash things up-" With a flick of his sword, Brandr cast out a misty image of Marshmallow. The snowman roared at the terrified mob. "-and then I saved the day." With another flick, the image vanished back into the blade.

There was a collective whisper from the villagers, mostly to the effect of:

"Is that true?"

"Yeah, I saw the whole thing..."

"No, he's lying!" Kristoff tried to restrain her, but Anna broke free of his grip and once again pushed her way in front of Brandr. "Elsa's snowmen wouldn't hurt anyone! This guy brainwashed them, and then when Elsa tried to freeze them, he used his sword to let them out!"

Brandr made an exaggerated gasp. "I am _hurt_ by this accusation! Clearly, this peon doesn't know what she's talking about. Crack open a history book – I'm a _hero_. I've been saving people – such as the poor, defenseless citizens of Arendelle – from evil ice-monsters for thousands of years." He counted off on his fingers. "I've killed ice-golems, wights, the occasional ice-breathing dragon, that Jack Frost brat... but, of course, my real specialty is cryomancers."

He leaned in to poke the tip of Anna's nose with his pointer finger. "I'm all about _killing_ these guys. How would I brainwash them? All I've got on me are pointy things!" He opened his coat to display a small collection of knives and arrows made of the same crystal material as his sword. "I mean, what, am I supposed to have, like, a magic knife that brainwashes snowmen?"

Now the crowd looked unsure. The villagers were trading glances and murmuring amongst themselves.

"It sounds to me like _somebody_ doesn't have as much control of her powers as she thinks she does," said Brandr.

"My powers are perfectly under control," said Elsa sternly.

"Oh, well then, I guess you _want_ your babies smashing up your town- _Look out, there's another one_!"

People screamed and backed away as Olaf wandered into the fray.

"Hey, guys, sorry I took so long," he said brightly. "I couldn't find the third piece of coal for my tummy. Can't go anywhere without _that._ Oh, hi there... weird-looking guy." Olaf bounced right up to Brandr. "I'm Olaf, and I like warm-"

The crystal sword dived through his head and pierced the entire length of Olaf's body. There was a distortion, and then nothing remained of him but some twigs, coal, and a carrot. Even his personal flurry was absorbed.

Elsa, Anna, and Kristoff all cried out in shock.

"Olaf was _harmless__._" Elsa's clenched her fists, vapors fuming off them like dry ice.

"Ah, yes, the ice-golems do _appear_ harmless in their, uh, larval stage, but trust me, once-" Brandr snickered. "-once he grew up, he'd be an unstoppable killing machine. Honest." He retrieved Olaf's carrot off the pavement and took a noisy bite. "I just saved all you guys' lives," he said through a mouthful of carrot. "Mmm, moldy..."

Elsa raised an arm. "Let my snowmen out _now_."

"Well, since you said 'please.'" Brandr turned to the crowd. "You heard the crazy sorceress. These vicious beasts are her _babies_. She _wuves_ them. More than she loves you guys, at least, what with that eternal winter she 'accidentally' subjected you to."

"It _was_ an accident," said Elsa.

"Uh huh," said Brandr flatly. "Well, given how much you care for Arendelle's well-being, things don't seem much better off now, do they? I mean, now you're just giving your people a drought."

Elsa was on the verge of popping a vein. "The drought is _not_ my fault. My powers only make things colder. Droughts are the opposite of my power!"

"Science lesson time!" Brandr announced to the crowd. "What do you suppose happens to the water in Arendelle when it's all frozen at once, then magically thawed?"

Now less and less citizens were looking indecisive.

Elsa took a step backwards. "The drought's not my fault," she repeated, but this time her voice was less ironclad.

"She had her monsters grab the Duke of Weaseltown when he insulted her sorcery!" screamed a random voice from the mob (One of the queen's advisors, safe in anonymity). "We could all be getting food from Weaseltown right now!"

"The plot thickens!" Brandr let out a whistle. "Is this true, Your Heiney?"

"It's... It's..." Elsa was shaking from anger. She had to explain... had to...

Thousands of eyes, every last one fixed on her. Elsa's heart beat faster... and faster... and faster... Elsa tried to speak, but she was paralyzed. For a solid minute, there was no noise save the increasing whispers of the crowd.

"It's not her fault!" said Anna. "She was possessed by an evil snowman!"

"Oh, so _now_ the snowmen are evil?" scoffed Brandr. "I thought I was mind-controlling them?"

"No, it was just one-"

"Ha! Look how their web of lies falls apart under scrutiny!" Brandr laughed heartily. "Trust me, fair Arendellians, I've been at this business for thousands of years, and I've never met a cryomancer who didn't deserve to be slain. Lucky for you guys, I'm willing to make you a rare, once-in-a-lifetime offer." He pointed his crystal sword at Elsa's face. "I'll gladly end the threat of this tyrant. Right here, right now."

Elsa raised her arms to eye-level, her brow quivering. Women and children screamed as a freezing wind blew through the village. "I am _not_ a tyrant," Elsa said tightly. "I am Queen Elsa, rightful heir to the throne of Arendelle, and _you_ have just declared yourself an enemy of the state."

"_Gosh_, rightful heir? Seriously?" Brandr made a show of looking surprised. "Oh dear, I am _so _sorry for my misunderstanding! I must have gotten confused because in my thousands of years of cryomancer-slaying experience-" He raised his voice, despite it already being magically audible to the crowd. "-_I__'__ve_ _never seen cryomancy in the bloodline of __any__ royalty_. I mean, don't get me wrong, there've been plenty of ice-benders who cheat and murder their way into positions of power, just never any _rightful_ ones. I guess you're the first in history! What a momentous occasion!"

Elsa's eyes narrowed. "Nobody would argue I'm not my mother's daughter. Ask anybody – I look exactly like her."

"Uncanny resemblance, eh?" grinned Brandr. "Huh, how about that? Kind of reminds me of the uncanny resemblance a changeling gets after they shapeshift into human form."

A hush fell over the crowd.

Elsa's heart hadn't slowed a bit, and now her breathing was reaching the same speed, and her head was swimming, and the room was spinning... "What are you saying?"

"I'm not _saying _anything." Brandr absently stroked his horse's mane. "I'm just _pointing_ _out_ that changelings have always had this unfortunate little habit of stealing babies out of their cribs and replacing them with their own children. And, I mean, that's always fun because the changeling-children get crazy magical powers. But that is totally off-topic. We're supposed to be talking about _you_, Queen Elsa, rightful heir to the throne after your parents – What was it again? – died in a mysterious accident, springing you to the throne super early?"

There were more screams from the crowd as a jagged icicle erupted from the ground, coming to a point inches from Brandr's neck.

"_Get out of Arendelle_," said Elsa.

"Um, Elsa," Kristoff tried to say, "I don't think this is helping your image right now-"

"Oh, don't worry, Your Queeniness, I'll be happy to duke it out with you." Brandr gently tapped the icicle-tip with the flat of his blade, causing the pointed edge to smooth. "But I don't do my cryomancer-slaying for free, I'm afraid. If your citizens want to be rid of their evil sorceress, it's gonna cost them."

"Wow, some hero you are," snorted Anna.

"I don't ask for much. In fact, it's a way to kill two birds with one stone." Brandr made another dramatic flourish towards the crowd. "People of Arendelle, I will give you my full cryomancer-slaying services for the low, low cost of all the magic in Arendelle!"

"What?" said a villager. "But the only person with magic here is the queen."

"Correction: She's the only person with magic who's been _outed_," said Brandr. "I betcha if you turned this kingdom upside down and shook it, you'd be surprised how much magic would fall out. See, what I offer the people of Arendelle is a chance to be rid of your current sorcery problem _and_ any future sorcery problems all in one fell swoop."

"And what do you plan on doing with all this magic?" asked Elsa.

"Oh, nothing you have to worry about." Brandr examined his own fingernails. "It'll be ferried off to the otherworld. You'll never miss it." He spun his head to address the entire mob. "All I need is the permission of the majority. So whattaya say, Arendellians? Do we have a consensus? Can I get a show of hands?"

More murmuring erupted over the crowd, with a seemingly equal number of "This is perfect! We can finally dethrone that sorceress!" and "This guy's a creep! We can't trust him!"

Finally, a white-haired man stepped forward, placing himself between Elsa and Brandr. Despite his age, the man was tall and broad-shouldered, and his emerald royal guard uniform was littered with medals.

"I think you should leave," he said. "Maybe you're right. Maybe the queen _is_ some sort of changeling, but at least we're familiar with her. We _know_ what Queen Elsa is capable of. Who are you? How do we know you are who you say you are?" He looked over the citizens. "And if it _is_ more common than we think, how do we know sacrificing all our magic won't hurt us?" The man's gaze fell from one of the many little kids crying at Olaf's imprisonment to a brunette woman with a swollen belly standing beside her husband. "How do we know our children don't have magic?"

"Faerie steal babies out of cradles!" screamed a woman from the crowd.

And that opened the floodgates for all sorts of screaming and hurling colorful insults at Brandr, mostly on the subject of him being a Fair Folk, acting obnoxious, and having an unhealthy fixation on his horse.

It was enough to give Elsa her second wind. She raised her head, her heart rate finally slowing.

"It doesn't sound like they agree with you, Brandr," Elsa said with no small amount of smugness. "_I've_ earned these people's trust."

"Fine. That's fine." Brandr straightened his coat and drew back like a cat that's just embarrassed itself. "I'm not making these fine citizens do anything. I can't do any cryomancer-slaying or magic-harvesting without their permission, after all. It's against the Fae law. No pressure or anything, people." He once again raised his voice. "It's just that, in my experience, those who decline my services have an unfortunate tendency to _freeze to death_." The faerie slung a leg over his horse's saddle and pulled himself up, stowing the violet blade within the recesses of his coat. "Offer's still on the table. Don't worry – I'll be back once you change your minds."

It was curious. Nobody consciously decided to, but every villager in Brandr's way found their legs moving them aside, forming a clear path for Olympus to gallop down.

"_Not so fast._"

But before he could gallop anywhere, Olympus found a wall of ice in his way.

"Give me back my snowmen," said Elsa.

"Sure." Brandr spun around on his saddle, riding his steed backwards. "I've got 'em all in here." He tapped the crystal hilt poking out his cloak. "Even the snowbirds. Man, did those things take a few days and some creativity to round up. But don't worry, I'll gladly give you your freaky, doughy offspring back... if you make me a bargain. _I've_ got something _you_ want, _you've_ got something _I_ want... Let's have ourselves a trade! Your snowmen for my sword. I like purple well enough, but the blue one really brings out my eyes. Whattaya say?"

Elsa folded her arms. "Fine. I'll have to go get it."

"Okay, but Olympus and I aren't sticking around here," said Brandr. "Ugh, hanging around all these mortals makes my skin break out. And Olympus is a thoroughbred of the finest stock – He can't be seen mingling with filthy commoners. No no no, you can find us at a residence more befitting a powerful Fae such as myself. It's this awesome ice-castle I found up on the mountain. It was uninhabited, so Olympus and me are squatting there."

Elsa hadn't thought this person could possibly grate her nerves any further, but he'd managed. "That's _my_ palace."

"Well, technically, now it's _my_ palace," said Brandr, turning back around. "And, okay, I admit it, it _was_ inhabited. But the inhabitants are currently a little too trapped inside my sword to do anything about it, so who's gonna stop me, _you__?_" As he spoke, both Brandr and his horse began to fade into an inky fog. "'_Oh no, I'm so scared of the __little girl__ who can shoot ice out her butt!_'" Brandr managed to make one last rude gesture at Elsa before vanishing completely.

Elsa watched the black smoke disperse until there was nothing left of the horse and its rider but empty air.

"Wow." Anna walked to her side. "What an-"

"Language, Anna," Elsa said mechanically.

"Yeah, yeah, sorry."

A minute passed in silence. Then Elsa swore loudly.


	45. A Visit with Brandr

Elsa commanded the winter. The ice was her servant, the snow her plaything. She summoned monstrous, wintry beasts to do her bidding. Elsa had called a lot of things down upon her enemies, but before today, she'd never gone as far as to invoke divine damnation.

"Oh my God! I've never heard you swear before!"

Elsa bowed her head, cheeks reddening. "That's because I never have."

"I didn't think you knew _how_ to swear!" Anna patted Elsa's face just to make sure she was really there.

"I'm sorry for cursing," sighed Elsa. "But after everything Brandr did, you can't blame me, can you?"

"No, no, I don't _blame_ you, Elsa... I just hope you like the taste of soap, that's all."

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Alright, pottymouths, let's focus on the subject at hand here." Kristoff stepped forward, followed by Sven. "What are we gonna do about our faerie problem?"

"I thought the faerie would be a monster like the wight," said Elsa, scowling. "I thought he'd be frightening. I didn't think he'd be so... so... obnoxious, so... childish, so..."

"Those swear words pretty much hit the nail on the head," said Anna.

"Yeah, I get the impression most magical creatures are like that," said Kristoff. "Trust me, this Brandr guy hasn't been nearly as obnoxious as the trolls can get."

The girls, boy, and reindeer were still in the town square by the overturned fountain, though the surrounding crowd had started to disperse. Some citizens were making a bee-line to their houses to make sure their cribs and cradles were still occupied, some were returning to their previous business prior to the intrusion of snowmen, faerie, and horses, and some were sticking around wondering why there wasn't currently any cryomancer-slaying happening.

There was, however, one other person who'd stayed behind for less mean-spirited reasons.

"Excuse me?" Elsa caught sight of the old man from before and ran up to him. "I take it you're the new admiral?"

"Admiral Klaus." The man gave a respectful bow. "Kai just appointed me this morning."

"What you said back there... Thank you. If it wasn't for you, Brandr could be trying to kill me right now."

Klaus's face remained rigid. "With all due respect, Your Majesty, you can't count on other people to bail you out every time you get stage fright."

A sharp retort came to mind, but Elsa restrained herself. "You're right. I'm still learning how to deal with people." She took a calming breath. "But _you_ seem like you have control."

"It's not hard," said Klaus. "People become hysterical idiots in crowds. That's why we have leaders." His eyes drifted towards the overturned statues littering the town square. "Queen Elsa, I apologize for the actions of my predecessor. I take the matter of sorcery _highly_ seriously, and I find the former admiral's actions disgusting."

"Thank you." Elsa wasn't sure what to make of this new Admiral. Everything about him from his deep voice to his stoic posture exuded confidence, and she had to remind herself she was his queen, not his pupil receiving a demerit.

"I wasn't in Arendelle for your coronation, but I heard what happened, of course" said Klaus. "You have my deepest sympathies. Not everyone with sorcery is thrust into the public eye like that. Most of them are able to hide."

Elsa nodded, but when she said nothing, Admiral Klaus walked away.

Next, Elsa turned to the remaining stragglers in the dwindling mob. "Citizens of Arendelle." The villagers' attention was caught by a gentle gust of cold wind brushing their faces. "This faerie is an enemy of the state who has threatened your ruling monarch," Elsa said in a loud, clear voice. "Any person cooperating with him in any shape or form will be found guilty of conspiracy to commit treason."

The number of people whispering sneaky things amongst themselves dropped significantly.

"Report any sightings of Brandr to the palace immediately. Do not directly engage him." Elsa's eyes skimmed the crowd, lingering on the handful of people giving her dirty looks. "Every word he spoke was a lie."

With the speech apparently over, the last few villagers left to go about their lives.

"Hey, Elsa," spoke up Anna. "That's right, isn't it? I mean, Brandr was just a big, fat liar, wasn't he? You're not a..."

Elsa took her hand. "I'm no more a changeling than Olaf is a larva." She gave Anna a reassuring smile. "He was trying to scare people."

As they spoke, Sven sifted through Olaf's remains. He gave a heartbroken nuzzle to the lifeless twigs and lumps of coal... and then ate the rest of the carrot Brandr had left behind (Look, Sven was all about respecting the departed, but he wasn't about to let a perfectly good carrot go to waste).

"So what do we do about Olaf?" asked Kristoff, giving his buddy a comforting scratch behind the ears.

"We have no choice," said Elsa. "We have to trade the sword for my snowmen."

"But what if it's a trick?" said Anna. "I mean, we're basically handing this guy a murder-weapon. What if you give it to him and then he attacks you right away, or he nabs all the snowmen again as soon as they're free?"

"He already has a sword that can absorb all the ice I can throw at it," Elsa said. "I don't see how much difference having two would make."

"Besides, you beat Adrian, didn't you?" said Kristoff. "Can't you just make more water and do it again?"

"Yes, but Adrian was mortal," said Elsa. "Brandr has magic. And... I haven't made water again since that ordeal. I'm not sure it's something I can do on command."

"You'll figure it out," shrugged Anna. "Anyways, what now?"

"You two should go back to the palace." Elsa turned towards the turrets looming over the village in the distance. "It doesn't sound like Brandr wants to hurt anyone but me, but I'd feel better if I knew where to find you."

"What about you?" asked Kristoff.

"I need to go get the sword from where I hid it," said Elsa. "I'll meet up with you soon, I promise."

"You're not gonna trade it to Brandr, are you?" Anna's brow creased with worry.

Elsa sighed. "I have to, Anna. But I won't fight Brandr. Not yet, anyways. Maybe I can reason with him?"

"I, uh, wouldn't count on it if I were you," said Kristoff.

"It's at least worth a try," said Elsa. "Wish me luck." She hugged Anna goodbye, then turned away.

"Elsa, wait!"

She turned back around.

"What that Brandr guy said... It was all stupid! You're not... not a..." Anna took another few tries to successfully say, "... a changeling. It was... stupid..."

"I'm not a changeling, Anna," said Elsa gently.

"Good, good, because, y'know, I thought maybe you were letting yourself think you were, even though you know it's not true, and you might be getting all upset over nothing." The longer Anna spoke, the faster the words came out. "And I didn't want you to think that maybe Brandr was right about this one thing and my real sister was some poor little girl who got kidnapped and replaced with you as a baby because that'd be..." She faltered. "...really really dumb, and I didn't want... _you_... to think something so dumb."

Anna's rambling was ended by Elsa resuming the hug.

"Anna, you're my sister _no matter what_."

"Yeah," said Anna faintly. "Yeah, I know, I'm just being... being stupid."

"I love you."

Elsa gave her a kiss on the forehead, then turned away again.

"Bye." Anna forced a laugh. "I'm gonna have a big bucket of soap waiting for you when you get back, okay?"

Elsa flashed her one last smile before leaving. "At least I'll have something to look forward to."

* * *

Elsa's first journey up the North Mountain hadn't been particularly fun. She'd been in _far_ lower spirits, and she'd made the entire trek on foot, which hadn't been nearly as easy as it sounded. Her blisters had had blisters. But this time, at least, she had the luxury of a palace horse to ride.

Elsa dismounted at the top of the icy staircase, which looked just the same as she'd left it. The Ice Palace, too, was exactly as Elsa remembered. Usually, gazing at it gave Elsa a little lightness in her chest, but this time the thrill was marred by the knowledge that there was currently a loathsome brat of a faerie inside.

What _was_ in Elsa's chest instead was a strange, alien sensation. As queen, Elsa had been raised to always be as polite and respectful as possible. For instance, as a child, she'd never argued with Anna over who owned which toys. Therefore, Elsa was unaccustomed to the feeling of "_M__ine mine mine mine mine!"_

Elsa approached the doorstep of _her _Ice Palace and tried to enter, but the door didn't budge. She sighed, then rapped on the icy surface.

It swung open.

"_For the last time, __I've already got an encycl_\- Oh, it's you." Brandr made a show of looking surprised.

Elsa required a minute to stare at him.

"I've had, like, five different salesmen come through there. Honest to God." Brandr spun around and retreated inside. "Well, what are you waiting for? Come on it. The beer's nice and cold. I love living in an ice castle."

"You're an idiot," realized Elsa.

"Aww, now you've gone and hurt my feelings."

Elsa couldn't wait until she could rinse her mouth out with soap – It'd be so much more pleasant than this.

Without further ado, Elsa followed Brandr into the palace. The moment she was inside, her nostrils seized up.

It. Smelled. Like. _Horse_.

Visually, it was untouched. The frozen fountain was still in place under the curved staircase, and all the ice was clear and clean. But that _smell_... Was... Was that tobacco smoke, too? Elsa's exhaled through her nostrils. She was shaking, her anger-level bordering on the irrational. Could she remove smells? Was that covered under her powers? What if it wasn't? What if the palace was stuck smelling this way forever? _Why would a magical construct even need to smoke in the first place for any reason but to annoy her?_

Elsa was shaken from her thoughts by a pleasant whinny. Olympus was just trying to say hi, but the instant he caught Elsa's facial expression, he backed away slowly.

"Be nice, Olympus. We've got company." Brandr overlooked the barren entrance hall, frowned, then turned to Elsa. "Hey, you, make yourself useful and conjure up some chairs, wouldya?"

Elsa stared at him, fists clenched and trembling, trying her best to murder Brandr with her eyes.

Brandr folded his arms. "You know, I don't _have _to give you these ice-golems. Usually, I just drop 'em in volcanoes or the middle of the desert."

For a minute, Elsa stayed still. Then she stomped her foot, causing a single ice-throne to sprout from the ground behind her. She seated herself, her eyes fixed on Brandr the entire time.

Brandr waited a minute. Nothing else happened. "I see how it is. Fine, be that way. I can sit on the floor. I don't mind." He plopped himself down, returning Elsa's glare.

The two of them stayed like that, glaring, for several long minutes. Olympus shook his head and trotted upstairs. It was worth braving the perils of the slippery steps to get away from the crazy bipeds.

Eventually, Elsa said, "I brought the sword. Bring me my snowmen." She held out the blue crystal blade.

"Hup-up-up, slow down there. What're you in such a hurry for?" Brandr kicked back his legs, sprawling himself across the ice. "You got somewhere to be? Let's have a little chat first. Olympus isn't the best at conversation, so you'll have to do."

"Do you have something to say to me?" Elsa asked tightly.

"Nah," shrugged Brandr. "I just wanna chat."

"I thought you wanted to kill me?"

"_For free__?_" scoffed Brandr. "No thanks. As much fun as slaughtering you would be, I think I'd rather wait until your citizens fork over some magic."

"So that's what you want? You think the regular citizens are hiding sorcery, and you want to bring it to the otherworld?"

"Well, not as strong as yours, but yeah," said Brandr. "Don't worry, I can harvest _your_ magic, too. Not gonna let all that power go to waste. Magic tends to linger around the corpse for a while, so all I gotta do is lob off your head and then drain it with this baby." He tapped the purple hilt sticking out his jacket. "Heck, I could go ahead and do it now if that pesky Fae law wasn't in effect."

"You're not exactly enticing me into wanting to stay here," said Elsa flatly.

"Well, that's too bad," said Brandr. "You're probably the most interesting non-horse I've ever met in this cesspit of a mortal realm."

"I'm flattered."

"I mean, yeah, I wouldn't think twice about killing you given half a chance, but it's nothing _personal_. Heck, I think you're awesome. Just look at all this!" He gestured to the surrounding palace. "It's like something a mortal would make. How quaint!"

Elsa's curiosity overcame her unadulterated loathing. "Don't... Don't most cryomancers make things like this?"

Brandr snorted. "Most of 'em lived in caves and stuff to hide from people trying to kill them. It didn't exactly breed culture."

"So are _all_ cryomancers changelings, or just me?"

"Changewhats-?" Brandr looked baffled before remembering. "Oh, right, that. Don't get your panties in a wad. I was just making stuff up to scare the townsfolk." He snickered. "Those dumb mortals will believe anything. I love how they think the drought is _your_ fault. You're totally right, droughts are the opposite of your power."

Elsa would have been relieved if she wasn't too busy being furious. Somehow, the fact that this piece of scum had turned her citizens against her angered Elsa much less than the fact that he'd upset her sister for no reason. Elsa added that to the long list of things Brandr was going to pay for.

"But then, if I'm not a changeling..." A thought struck Elsa – a question she'd asked herself constantly as a child. "...where do my powers come from?"

Brandr stared at her. Then he burst out laughing. "_Where_ do they _come from__?_" he got out between howls. "That is... _Oh _dear_ God_, that is _such_ a _mortal_ question!"

Elsa remained rigid on her throne, her face frozen in a scowl.

"What are you gonna ask next?" asked Brandr, wiping his eyes. "Where does light come from? Why do things fall down when I drop 'em?"

"But there has to be a reason-"

"You humans and your reasons!" Brandr laughed. "Always having to put names to things, find meaning, look for order in chaos... If you ask me, you shouldn't even be called 'cryomancers.' You're the winter." He jabbed a finger at Elsa, then pointed upwards. "The way we Fae see things, you're no different from any other snowstorm just cuz one happens to look like a cloud and the other happens to look like a little girl's dress-up doll."

Elsa folded her arms. "So you're saying I'm naturally occurring? Sometimes people just happen to be born with powers like mine?"

"I don't know what you want me to tell you," said Brandr. "It's magic. Magic is the poster child for doing things arbitrarily."

"I just thought... even if I'm not a changeling or a faerie-child, maybe my magic came from the otherworld..."

"Oy." Brandr shook his head. "You've got it all backwards, lady. Magic doesn't _come_ from the otherworld – It _goes_ to the otherworld. That's kinda the whole deal with us Fair Folk."

"How are you even alive?" asked Elsa. "I thought the legends said Mother Winter killed you."

"Oh yeah, her." Brandr's face sourced at the memory. "Picture yourself, only raised by wolves. Not a pleasant chick to be around, let me tell ya. Strongest magic I ever seen in a cryomancer. That's the thing about faeries – Getting stabbed with an icicle does squat to us, but expose us to enough raw magic and we go kaput. But, hey, Mother Winter was gonna freeze the planet, so, y'know, you're welcome."

"Somehow I doubt you killed her out of the goodness of your heart," Elsa said dryly.

"Anywho, to answer your question, I'd normally be six feet under by now, but luckily, part of the process to forge these here antimagic swords of mine involves sealing parts of my soul into them." He gestured to the blade in Elsa's hand.

Elsa blinked. "Your soul's in the swords?"

"Yep. And that means when that wight guy broke into the ice-caverns left in Mother Winter's wake to get 'em out, he got me out, too. I chased after the guy, but, err, my physical form isn't too great at traveling long distances, and my spectral form's kind of a separate entity, so... I needed a horsie. Man, was _that_ ever a fun little detour. My delicate faerie sensibilities refuse to let me ride anything but the finest, so I had to find the best stallion lineage in some nearby kingdom, and it turns out they were, like, _crazy_ well-guarded."

Brandr threw his hands in the air, his voice growing excited. "Did you know they're using _frying pan weaponry _over there? I didn't think mortal civilization had advanced that far _already_-"

"Don't change the subject."

"Sorry. As I was saying, I followed the wight here, found out about you, and I assumed, since he stole my swords and everything, wightey was planning to use them to kill you for whatever reason. You're welcome for the warning."

"So the wight was right? You _were_ trying to turn us against each other?"

"Well, I don't think _he_ had your best interests at heart, either," shrugged Brandr. "I just figured making you kill him was easier than doing it myself. Plus, this way I got to gauge your strength. And your prize for killing him is the honor of being worthy to be slain by me! Yaaaaaay!" He feigned applause.

"But why would you do any of this in the first place?" asked Elsa. "Why not just let the wight kill me and then take the magic from my corpse? Why even bother explaining any of this to me?"

"Uh..." Brandr looked thoughtful, as if he wasn't quite sure himself. "Because I'm bored, because I'm a braggart, and mostly because, well, I like a good challenge. Sure, harvesting magic for the otherworld is a noble endeavor, but somewhere along the way, I started to have fun. I _like_ being a cryomancer-slayer, and it's so seldom a powerful enough cryomancer comes along. I really hit the jackpot with you! I mean, it's been a thousand years since I last stretched my legs, y'know?" He smiled to himself.

"I _do_ get a little impatient," Brandr admitted. "Right now, the plan is to hang around here with Olympus until enough citizens decide to fork over their magic so their hate will make my swords nice and powerful, and then I can kill you without worrying about the stupid Fae laws. And, to a supernatural being like myself, time is basically meaningless, so I could wait a few decades for your people to have a change of heart. It wouldn't be super fun, though."

"You poor thing," Elsa said flatly.

"I know, right?" Suddenly, the faerie shot Elsa a mischievous look. "But of course, there _is_ a more _expedient_ route to take."

Elsa tensed in her seat. "What do you mean?"

"You could save us both a lot of trouble by waltzing into the otherworld all on your own."

"I hope you don't think I'm that stupid," Elsa said flatly.

"You're stupid for _not_ going!" scoffed Brandr. "Look, honey, I've been at this business for thousands of years. I know what's going to go down between us. You'll do something to scare your citizens, then they'll come to me begging to kill you, and then I'll do it. It's good for me, bad for you. But I'm a generous guy. I'll settle for just _your_ magic."

For once, Brandr dropped the smugness in his voice. "Elsa, listen to me. I know you were raised by mortals, so you're more... _attached _to them than you should be, but trust me, these people will _never_ accept you for what you are. Never have, never will. So you can either go back to pretending you're not the most powerful sorceress on the planet, or you can go where you belong. You know, there are already a couple cryomancers in the otherworld. They love it there. They've never been happier. You could meet them. It's... kind of hard to explain, but the otherworld is totally different from the mortal realm in every way. Pretty much every bad thing you can think of _here_ doesn't exist over _there_. Like, death? People in the otherworld don't even know what that is."

"Even if I did believe you," said Elsa, "I have responsibilities here. I have _loved_ _ones_ here."

"What, a bunch of mortals?" Brandr's voice was growing impatient. "If you took just one peek at the grandeur of the otherworld, you'd wonder why you ever cared about some pigtail-wearing brat."

"_That's it!_" Elsa's voice made Brandr's sound completely patient. "Give it a rest already. I'm _never_ going to the otherworld."

"Look, it's not some kind of trick. The otherworld really is awesome," said Brandr. "I'm not gonna trap you in an urn or anything..."

"I'm ready to leave," said Elsa. "Give me my snowmen _now_."

A big, wide grin crossed Brandr's eyes, which, coupled with his eyes, made him look more like a Cheshire cat than a person. "Something wrong, Your Queeniness? Y'know, there _is_ an _even more_ expedient route to squeezing the magic out of you. See, according to Fae law, if you attack first, I'm totally within my rights to fight back, and if I just _happen _to drain your magic into my sword afterward, well..."

"I see. So you're _trying_ to provoke me. That explains a lot." Somehow, the knowledge didn't make Elsa any calmer.

"Yeah," smirked Brandr, "I have a feeling provoking you isn't gonna be too hard, orphan."

Elsa's eyebrows twitched all on their own.

Brandr slowly, deliberately retrieved a pipe from his coat and lit it. "I hope you don't mind if I smoke, orphan. I'd _hate it_ if the smell _bothered_ you..."

A quick gust of freezing wind extinguished the pipe.

"Careful now," said Brandr. "That was an awfully _aggressive_ blast of wind, don't you think? I'm starting to feel a bit... _threatened_ by you, orphan."

"Bring me my snowmen," Elsa said curtly. "We made a bargain."

"Oh, but don't you wanna hear my plans for the ice castle first?" Brandr replaced his pipe and pulled out the violet sword. "I'm preparing some major renovations to make it more suitable for a powerful Fae like myself." He held the hilt so the blade was perpendicular to him. "Like, random example, I really think it could use a window right _here_."

Elsa cried out in horror as Brandr drove the blade into the wall, turning a small section of the pristine palace into nothing but a nice view of the mountainside.

"There, much less crappy, don'tcha think?" Brandr admired the jagged hole like a work of art. "Oh, that reminds me, don't go to the balcony. Olympus left you a present up there."

Elsa gathered her resolve, forcing herself to take steady breaths. "You can act like an immature child all you want. It won't- _Agh__!_" She was interrupted by her ice-chair vanishing out from beneath her. Elsa's behind hit the ground with a thump.

First Brandr snickered, but then he failed to restrain himself and he burst into uncontrollable laughter. "Something wrong, Your Heiney?" He held up his sword.

Elsa was practically barring her fangs like a wild animal. She returned to her feet, doing her best to straighten her dress.

But this might not have been wise – It called Brandr's attention towards her outfit. "Oh _no_," he said, beyond himself with laughter. "Tell me you're not one of those cryomancers who wears nothing but ice-clothing?"

For the first time, real fear crossed Elsa's eyes. "Just... just give me back my snowmen, and I'll leave. Just-"

"Wow, that's a _very _pretty dress." Brandr took a step forward. "But y'know what would improve it?"

Elsa stepped back. "_You stay away from me_-"

"Some midriff!" Before she could move, Brandr poked her stomach with the tip of his sword. The ice-fabric in a small radius dissolved away like it'd been burned off. Brandr whistled. "Hey, look at that, you're an outie!"

It was at this point that Elsa finally punched him.

Brandr stumbled back, clutching his face. He was barely able to form words through his howls of laughter. "Can... Can I fight back now? Did that count?" Brandr cocked his head, apparently talking to someone Elsa couldn't see. "No? She was _too_ justified? I understand completely..."

As he spoke, Elsa seized the chance to magically repair the hole in her dress and run for the door.

"Alright, alright..." The voice only he could hear had apparently persuaded Brandr of something. "Hey, Your Queeniness, hold up, I've got your ice-golems right here." He retrieved an orb from his coat that appeared to be made of the same crystal as his other weapons, only clear and colorless.

Elsa paused at the doorway and turned back. "What is that?"

"Do you like it?" Brandr held up the orb, beaming. "See, you call your ice-golems 'snowmen,' and I think that's just the most adorable thing ever, so I call this doohickey my _snow globe___.__ Pretty good, right?"

Elsa didn't look particularly impressed.

"Don't worry, they're all in here. See for yourself." Brandr tossed her the sphere, which Elsa readily caught.

Up close, she could see that Brandr was indeed telling the truth. It was like her snowmen had been shrunken and stuffed inside. There were the snowbirds flying around the top, smashing against the crystal, Cloud, Cottonball, and Marshmallow, still failing and roaring, and Olaf, who looked as cheerful as ever despite lacking eyes, arms, and a nose.

"Just focus your mind on the orb and your magic should free them," said Brandr. "Oh, and don't forget your end of the bargain."

Elsa held out the blue sword and dropped it at her feet. "If you've hurt _any_ of my snowmen..."

"You'll do what, whine at me?" said Brandr. "You do you remember what people call me, right? Cuz it ain't Brandr the Defenseless Puppy-Slayer."

Elsa scowled at him one last time, then turned to the doorway with orb in hand. She could see her horse from here. All she had to do was walk away. All she had to do was...

"Man, I just can't _believe_ how attached you cryomancers are to your precious snow-babies," said Brandr as he admired his own fingernails. "I mean, you were _seriously _stupid enough to give me _another_ weapon _just_ to get them back? You could have just made more!"

"They can't be replaced," said Elsa, fighting to keep her voice level. "They're _people_."

"You're not even the worst example, orphan," continued Brandr, ignoring her. "This one time, there was this precocious little toddler who could make her snowballs sprout legs and walk around. She bawled like a _baby_ when I sucked 'em into my sword." He snickered. "And that was _before_ I cut off her arms!"

Brandr's laughter was cut short by a jet stream of freezing water smashing into his face. He was sent flying into the far wall, his violet sword clattering to the ice-floor.

Slowly, Brandr rose to his feet. His eyes wandered to Elsa, who was standing in the doorway, facing his direction, arms raised and chest heaving, once again attempting to murder him with her eyes.

Brandr grinned. "That's more like it."


	46. Skirmish

Olympus let out a snort and rolled over on the frozen floor. Sure, the palace interior looked beautiful with its geometric edges and that icy chandelier dangling from the ceiling, but being made entirely of ice didn't make it particularly comfortable.

Honestly, Olympus wasn't the biggest fan of the weird human-shaped thing that followed him around, and he'd kind of enjoyed his life better _before_ the creature had snatched Olympus out of his stable... but the human-shaped thing always seemed to have a supply of sugar cubes on hand, and that counted for a lot.

Olympus was just starting to get comfortable when a resounding thump shook the palace with enough force to send him skidding. He whinnied in displeasure. How was Olympus expected to get any sleep when the dumb hairless apes downstairs were making so much racket?

But before Olympus could collect his bearings, another tremor rocked the palace. Wow, that was even stronger than the last one. Olympus hoped Brandr wasn't hurting that nice, minty-smelling woman _too_ badly.

* * *

"Ow! Hey, watch it!"

That second tremor had been caused by Brandr attempting to retrieve his sword and instead being sent flying into the back wall again.

"Gosh, Your Heiney," said Brandr, wiping water droplets off his face, "I'm starting to get the idea you don't like me very-"

The next instant, the geysers from the palace fountain turned to liquid and twisted through the air, smashing into Brandr again and again like cobras striking their prey.

"Keep pushing me, Brandr." Every drop of Elsa's fury had gone into her freezing water. Her face was the picture of calm amid the typhoon swirling around her. "Keep pushing me and see what happens." An entire wave erupted from Elsa's hands and crashed into him. The Fae was once again knocked off his feet, sputtering and gagging.

With a sweep of her arms, every droplet of water flew into the air above Elsa's head. Then, Elsa threw her arms downwards. The water did likewise, all if it congregating on one, Brandr-sized target. There was a sound like a thunderclap as the icy liquid touched down. Then Elsa raised her arms again and repeated the process several more times.

"_Murderer._"

_Crack._

"_Remorseless-_"

_Crack._

"_-evil-_"

_Crack._

"_-__murderer!_"

_CRACK._

When it comes to lethal forces of nature, water is often overlooked. But the truth is, when it's hurtling at you at the speed of a bullet, water has a lot more in common with a hunk of concrete than a refreshing beverage.

After a while, the miniature sea within the Ice Palace calmed and snaked around Elsa's legs, awaiting her orders. Then Elsa caught sight of something in the water – the crystal swords. They'd been swept up during the attack. She glanced back at the smoke, which was growing thicker by the second. There wasn't a moment to lose.

The blue and purple blades shot into the air, both covered in swirling aqua jets. Elsa wasn't entirely sure what she was doing, but so long as she had the general idea of "expose the swords to pure, raw magic" in her head, her powers seemed to take care of the rest. As the smoke grew thicker and thicker, the twin swords began to tremble. The blue one gave way first, a deep crack forming on its hilt.

Elsa's heart pounded. _Almost there. Almost there_. Just another second and Brandr would be a distant memory...

But the next thing she knew, Elsa was standing on a frozen lake, watching herself drown a man... so much anger churning through her veins, she couldn't stop even if she wanted to...

_My sister is __NOT__ a murderer!_

And then came that sense of _wrongness_ again. Purely on impulse, Elsa tried to make some ice, and that's when she realized she _couldn't_. Her powers were stuck. It was the sensation you get when you realize you're asleep, but _you_ _can't make your eyes open_.

Every drop of water turned solid all at once. The blades grew still, undamaged save for the one crack. Elsa was left standing in the doorway, gasping for breath like she'd been suffocating, cold sweat running down her face.

By now, Brandr had regained his bearings. He returned to his feet, howling with laughter.

"You couldn't do it," he cackled. "You could've beaten me then and there, but you just didn't have it in you. I'm almost disappointed. For a second there, I actually thought you'd be a challenge. But it turns out you're nothing but another name to add to the list: Jack Frost. Mother Winter. The Snow Queen."

Elsa made for the swords, but Brandr blocked her path.

"Anywho, since you apparently lack the firepower to destroy my swords, looks like we're in a good old-fashioned standoff. If you don't wanna get slain, my advice is you walk your cute little butt out the door, then find somewhere to hide and pray I never get the green light to kill you."

Elsa looked back at the swords, which were both sealed up tight beneath the ice. "No," she said. "We're not in a standoff. I _won_." She glared at Brandr. "_You're_ the one who should leave. Your swords are _mine_ now, and this palace is _mine_, and I want you _out __of Arendelle_."

Brandr chuckled to himself. "What, you think I can't dig my swords out of your ice? It might take me a while, but I got one from the bottom of a lake – I think I can manage to get them out of a little frost."

"Go ahead and try," said Elsa, raising her arms. "I can tear apart your bodies as many times as you like."

Brandr brought a hand to his head. "Ohhhhhhh, I see what the problem is. You think that without my swords, I can't fight back." He made a show of rolling up his sleeves. Despite being rail-thin, Brandr's arms were surprisingly muscular. "Looks like you, little lady, are cruisin' for a bruisin'. Yeah, that's right, I'm not above hitting a girl. Let's do this." He raised his fists in a fighting stance.

Elsa almost laughed. With a flick of her wrist, she sent forth some ice to freeze Brandr in a block of ice.

Except... there was a plume of black smoke, and suddenly there was nothing in the ice but empty air. Elsa spun her head around the room, frantically searching for her opponent. And she found him. Or rather, she found his fist in her head.

* * *

Olympus was roused from sleep by the sound of more scuffling from downstairs. There were cries of, "Hey, quit squirming, Your Queeniness!" and "Get your hands off me!" and then a feminine scream. Olympus's eyes widened. He had a feeling that Brandr wasn't treating that lady very respectfully. Being ever the chivalrous stallion, Olympus tromped down the stairs – only slipping once or twice – to find Brandr hauling the poor woman over his shoulder like a child.

Elsa kicked and squirmed, but before she could summon any ice, she found herself punted out the door. Elsa sailed several feet through the air and landed face-first in the snow before her ice-stairs.

"Not that you didn't show me a good time, but I wouldn't recommend you come back to _my_ Ice Palace unless you're ready for us to resume trying to kill each other," Brandr called after her. "Oh yeah, and since I'm a Fae of my word, I'd hate to see you leave without _this_."

He retrieved the snow globe Elsa had dropped and lobbed it at her head. Luckily, Elsa was at least collected enough to duck, letting the orb land harmlessly in the snow.

Elsa pulled herself halfway out of the snow to scowl at him. "This isn't over. You're going to answer for your crimes."

Brandr brought a hand to his hip and put on a sassy voice: "_My conscience never bothered me anyway._"

He did a twirl and retreated inside, slamming the door behind him with a flourish of his arm.

* * *

Elsa stayed half-buried in the snow, staring at her Ice Palace for another minute. It was taking every ounce of willpower to stop herself from storming back inside and subjecting Brandr to his own personal Ice Age, but... what good would it do? The Fair Folk were otherworldly creatures, meaning Brandr's physical body was just an illusion – a magical construct. What she _needed_ to do was shatter those swords into a million pieces, and that, apparently, required her water.

Elsa found herself shuddering. When she'd first attempted it, Elsa had thought she'd be _happy_ to make water. She hadn't expected it to feel so... so...

The image of a drowning man flashed through her mind.

Eventually, Elsa pulled herself out of the powder, forced herself to take some deep breaths, and retrieved the snow globe by her feet. The tiny snowmen inside looked a bit shaken at being hurled like a ball, but Olaf, at least, still had his trademark toothy smile.

Elsa mounted her horse, then trotted down to a clearing at the foot of the North Mountain. Around here, the trees were still green and not white, though a distressing number of their leaves were dried out and dead. Elsa had a feeling the only reason the mountain's peak wasn't too hot for snow was because of her powers keeping the palace from melting.

She dismounted, then held out the globe with both hands. The three larger snowmen still seemed to be mindlessly rampaging inside the orb, but Elsa couldn't keep them trapped forever. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and used her magic to free them, the same as she'd freed them from the sword before. There was a flash of light, then a gust of windswept snow. In the span of seconds, the snowflakes stacked themselves into the shape of four snowmen and a couple dozen snowbirds.

"Is everyone alright?" asked Elsa.

"Oh, hi, Elsa!" said Olaf, turning his head in her general direction. "Is it just me, or did everything get really dark all of a sudden?"

Olaf's comment might have stemmed from his lack of coal-eyes. He tried to give Elsa a hug, but instead he tripped over a rock and smashed his noseless face into the dirt, unable to right himself without arms. She'd have thought seeing Olaf "naked" would be pretty funny, but Elsa was actually a little creeped out by it.

But she didn't have time to dwell on it because the next instant, Cottonball resumed trying to decapitate her. As the snowbirds flew to safety, Elsa quickly waved her arms and sealed the three brothers' limbs in ice once again.

"Tell me what's wrong!" said a concerned Elsa. "Did Brandr do something to you?"

"Hurt! Hurt!" roared Marshmallow, struggling against his restraints.

Elsa got a sinking feeling in her stomach. What if they were stuck this way forever?

"Elsa?" came the muffled voice of Olaf. "I've fallen, and I can't get up!"

"Oh, sorry, little guy." Elsa righted the snowman, then skimmed the forest floor for some rocks and twigs. "Here you go," she said, sticking the sticks in his sides. Then, Elsa placed a pair of dark stones in Olaf's pupil-less eyes and infused them with magic to make the snow around them smooth and shiny like real eyeballs. "You'll have to use rocks for eyes again until we get home." She'd substituted black rocks the first time she brought him to life, too. It wasn't like there was a bunch of coal lying around the North Mountain.

"Whoa. You're kinda blurry now." Olaf blinked a coupled times to adjust. "What about my nose?"

"I think it was eaten," said Elsa.

"So _that's_ why everything smells like stomach acid..."

"We'll get you another one." Elsa turned back to the imprisoned snowmen, frowning. "Olaf, do you have any idea why your brothers are out of control like this?"

"Uh..." Olaf paced around the trapped Cottonball, examining him carefully. "Lemme see..." he muttered to himself. "Trapped in ice, trying to kill everyone, knife in the back of his neck... Nope, can't think of anything."

"Knife?" Elsa ran around to where Olaf stood. There was indeed something poking out the back of Cottonball's head. Elsa grabbed the hilt and yanked out a piece of green, sharpened crystal. The instant it was out, Cottonball's struggling ceased, and he instead breathed heavily.

But a second later, a searing pain passed Elsa's palm. She cried out and dropped the weapon, clutching her hand. The crystal dagger plopped onto the grass.

"Hurt," said Cottonball feebly.

Elsa stared at the knife at her feet. The magic knife that brainwashed snowmen.

* * *

The pair of guards by the gate were on high alert. Somehow, they just weren't able to relax the same way they could _before_ their post had been attacked by deranged killer monster snow goons.

For several long minutes, the guards stood in tense silence.

"Am I the only one who picked up on a little somethin' somethin' between Queen Elsa and Prince Hans?" spoke up the one on the left.

"Oh my God, Henrik, will you _stop__?_" screamed the one on the right. "Y'know, some of us care about things _besides_ the queen's love life!"

There was a much longer silence.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to-"

"No, no, _I'm _sorry. I shouldn't have yelled. I guess... I guess I'm just on edge after those monsters attacked us. I swear, if I never see a snow-monster again in my life, it'll be too-"

Just then, Elsa's horse arrived the courtyard, right next to the gates. But it wasn't alone – Elsa was accompanied by a group of giant, horrific monstrosities (and Olaf).

The left guard screamed and dived into the right guard's arms.

"Don't worry! They won't attack again! The faerie was controlling them with these." Elsa held up a large sphere of ice. Inside it were various items of crystal: three emerald daggers and a smaller, transparent sphere. "See? Now they're as harmless as Olaf."

Marshmallow extended a hand to shake, causing the guards to shriek and stumble backwards. Marshmallow caught himself and retracted his icicle-claws. When neither guard made a move, he gave a reassuring smile and extended his hand closer.

"But, um, Your Majesty, I thought they were supposed to stay on the North Mountain?" said a guard, feebly accepting the shake.

"The faerie is up there," said Elsa distastefully. "I don't want him attacking them again, so my snowmen need to stay somewhere I can keep an eye on them. They won't fit too well in the castle, so they'll have to live in the courtyard. They shouldn't be any trouble."

"Yes, Your Majesty... No trouble at all..."

Elsa gave her snowmen a warm smile. "Be good. I love you." She kissed each of them on the nose, then turned away.

The guards watched their queen lead her horse towards the royal stables. Then they both turned to the snowmen, only slightly trembling with sheer, unleaded terror. But the four snowmen quickly lost interest in the guards and wandered off into the courtyard, their collection of flurry clouds dutifully following above their heads.

Several minutes passed.

"Is it just me, or does the queen seem awfully _close_ to her snowm-?"

"_Shut up_, Henrik. Just _shut up_."

* * *

"Oh, Anna, there you are."

Elsa found her sister at the table in the dining hall. She only spared Anna a glance before throwing herself into the adjacent seat and resting her head on the table.

"You okay?" asked Anna. "Did you get the snowmen back?"

"I did," said Elsa, "but I... got into a little tussle with Brandr. He's a real piece of work."

"That's putting it mildly..."

"He's still in my Ice Palace. I tried to force him out, but he has magic. There's nothing I can do but destroy his swords, and I tried to, but... I failed. He's not hunting me right now, but if the townsfolk ever turn on me... I don't know if I can defeat him..." Elsa shut her eyes.

"He didn't hurt you, did he?" asked Anna, concern gripping her voice.

"I'm fine. Brandr just got under my skin, and... I couldn't help myself. I _had_ to attack him."

"I know how that feels." Anna put on a small smile. "But Elsa, _you're_ the one who gets onto _me_ for being too reckless." She put her hand over Elsa's own. "I was really worried you were gonna try and fight this jerk and get yourself killed. Try not to scare me like that again, okay?"

"I promise." Elsa opened her eyes and met Anna's gaze. "I'm not a changeling, by the way. Brandr was lying to scare people. He admitted it. Brandr told me everything about himself, in fact. He loves to hear himself talk."

"Well, that's... not surprising or anything." Anna failed to conceal a gigantic sigh of relief. "I mean, we _knew_ you weren't a changeling. That would've been _really_ stupid."

Elsa nodded. "Speaking of things that aren't surprising, I also know for a fact that Brandr was controlling my snowmen when they attacked the town. He planted enchanted daggers in them. I brought the daggers to Grand Pabbie, so we should know more about them soon."

"Wow, you went to the North Mountain and the troll valley all in one trip? You ran halfway across Arendelle!"

"Yeah." Elsa closed her eyes again. "I'm exhausted. What I really need right now is a rest."

_Plop._

She opened her eyes to find a bucket of sudsy water planted on the table before an expectant Anna.

Elsa let out a groan. "Not now, Anna."

Anna made a pouty face.

"Don't look at me like that!" said Elsa.

Anna looked at her like that.

"Alright, alright..." Elsa sighed and brought the tip of the bucket to her mouth. She slowly took a sip.

"Bigger sip," ordered Anna.

Elsa reluctantly complied.

"Now swish it around."

This was too much. Soapy water spewed out Elsa's mouth, showering the table. A second later, it turned to soapy ice.

"Whoa." Anna sounded genuinely impressed. "I didn't know your spit freezes."

"I washed out my mouth," said a considerably grumpier Elsa. "Can I go now?"

"Gee, I don't know, Elsa," said Anna, barely suppressing a grin. "We could be here all night. You used some_ nasty_ words."

Well, Elsa couldn't argue with that... She shut her eyes tight and leaned in for the next gulp.

Elsa tried very, very hard to look dignified.


	47. Mother Winter

By the time Elsa crawled under the covers, she couldn't so much as wiggle her tongue without her entire sensory input being inundated with soapiness.

"Sorry," said Anna from the doorway. "I, uh, might have gotten a little carried away there."

Elsa gave a patient smile. "Goodnight, Anna."

"Night. See you in the morning." Anna started to leave, but then she stuck her neck back through the doorway to ask, "Wait, you're not gonna have nightmares again, are you?"

"Well, considering that soap I just ate was a lot scarier than Brandr, I'm not too worried," said Elsa.

"Yeah, you're probably gonna dream about strangling him." Anna laughed, reassured, and then left down the hall.

As soon as Anna was safely out of sight, Elsa's smile vanished and images of crystal swords and yellow eyes flashed through her head. Great, so now she was having nightmares before she'd even fallen asleep. Just when Elsa thought she'd gotten over the problem usually faced by small children scared of monsters in their closet, _that's_ when it came swinging back at full force.

Elsa groaned and turned over beneath her blankets. She had yet another council meeting tomorrow, and at this rate she was going to spend it in a sleep-deprived fog. It wasn't only the nightmares, either. There was something inherently challenging about resting when Elsa knew there was a smug little faerie lounging around _her_ castle, no doubt defacing it for his own amusement right this very minute.

She sat up against her bedframe and held out her palm, summoning an ice crystal above it. Elsa took a deep breath, buried the memory of a drowning man in the recesses of her mind, and slowly turned the ice to snow. Then, she focused harder, straining her forehead, gritting her teeth, clenching her eyelids shut...

She opened them to find plenty of water on her palm. Just no _liquid_ water. Elsa groaned and threw the slush to the floor, not even bothering to dispel it. She was no different now than she was when she'd been terrified of a lit match. Mary had done this _easily_, for Christ's sake!

Elsa looked up to find Emma the snowwoman peering at her from her corner of the bedroom. Elsa sighed, then rose from the covers. If she couldn't get to sleep and she couldn't practice making water, then Elsa could at least find something more productive to do than drown in her own self-pity. She let her bare feet guide her down the candlelit halls without any input from her brain. Elsa didn't care how many night guards saw her with her hair down and in her ice-nightgown. She didn't even acknowledge their confused grunts of, "Your Majesty?"

Elsa ended up in the library, her old haunt from before the coronation. Every time Elsa's habits from her glove-wearing days resurfaced, she had to fight back a little pang of guilt in her chest. Elsa would never admit it to herself, but those old habits were comforting.

She picked a random bookcase and skimmed the spines, not because she wanted a book to read, but because it passed the time. But after a minute, her attention span ran out, and Elsa instead turned to her father's reading desk. The one that was waiting for him to return home and resume his work.

_Papa_.

Oh no. No, no, no. Not tonight. Not now, while she had so many other, more pertinent things to be upset about. It'd been three years! She'd visited the graves without crying! Why would a... Why would a stupid desk set her off...?

Elsa seated herself and stared at the scattered documents. Some were in her father's handwriting. There'd been a time Elsa had been a master at keeping her face blank, but now it refused to hold still no matter how hard she tried.

The next thing she knew, Elsa was frantically wiping off water droplets from one of the older tomes before they had a chance to freeze to it. But as her hand brushed the cover, it suddenly paused. There was a design on the leather jacket... a _snowflake_ design.

That's right. Her father had always been pouring over the books on magic he'd rounded up, hoping to find some tidbit of information to help Elsa learn control. And this one had rested at the center of the desk, untouched, for three years. This could have been the last book he ever...

Elsa gingerly opened the cover. Old Norse runes. She almost closed it back right away, but then Elsa spotted some loose sheets of parchment jutting out from between the pages. Upon closer examination, they turned out to be page-by-page translations. Her father had gone through this enormous tome meticulously. All this just for the _chance_ it would help Elsa?

This thing could fall apart at the seams any minute now. Slowly, carefully, Elsa leafed through the pages. She couldn't quite make out her father's handwritten translations in the dim candlelight, but what she could see were the illustrations. The book was full of them, vibrantly colored and detailed. Illustrations of people with pale skin, with blue eyes, with silvery hair...

Elsa's heart beat faster as she turned the page. Now there were pictures of little white humanoid things, hardly larger than Olaf... and on the next page, a handful of silver-haired children playing side-by-side with the snowmen. An adult woman loomed over the group. She seemed beautiful yet fierce, nude save for some patches of frosty ice in the right places.

They were a family, Elsa realized. Look how happy they were. Was this how things used to be for... for people like Elsa, a thousand years ago?

_You know, there are already a couple live cryomancers in the otherworld. You could meet them._

Brandr's smug grin flashed through Elsa's head.

_Magic is being increasingly driven underground._

Elsa stared at the picture.

_I doubt two cryomancers have ever been__ alive at the same time._

Elsa flipped through the book, stopping at the page that seemed to hold the first illustration of the woman, then found the corresponding page of her father's translation. Elsa went to get some light, but that was the only time she put the book down for the rest of the night.

* * *

The wilderness of the North Mountain was interesting. There were animals to chase, caves to explore, cliffsides to climb... Every day spent living there was a new adventure.

The courtyard of Arendelle castle contained neat and orderly bricks and some pleasant ice-statues of the royal family to look at.

Cloud scratched his left butt cheek. Minutes passed. Cottonball scratched his right butt cheek.

Marshmallow, meanwhile, wasn't itchy, so he was instead occupying himself trying to catch snowflakes in his mouth from his own personal flurry. He was getting pretty into it, too, until he was brought out of it by the sound of screaming.

"_Eeeeeek! The monsters! The monsters are back!_"

The regular crowd of pedestrians arriving through the open gates had spotted our fluffy white friends, and now many of them were fleeing, shrieking their heads off.

"Hrmm?" Marshmallow and his brothers traded confused looks. Curiously, Marshmallow neared a fleeing girl.

"Get back! Like, stay away, from me, you freaks!" Halfway through her mad scramble to escape, the girl got her hands on a large pebble and hurled it with all her might.

The stone sailed right between Marshmallow's eyes and out the other side. Marshmallow and the girl stood there for a second, their faces blank. Then Marshmallow roared.

The girl fled out the gates, screaming, "_R__un for your lives! __I__t's totally attacking me for, like, noooooo reason!_"

"What's going on?" A minute later, the front doors swung open, and Elsa ran over to her snowmen.

Marshmallow and his brothers gave one last snarl to the panicked citizens before turning to their creator, greeting her with happy smiles.

"Did you roar at those people?" asked Elsa, hands on her hips.

Marshmallow bowed his head.

"I told you to be _good__!_"

"I'm not a freak," said Marshmallow.

Elsa's face softened. "Oh no, did they call you that, big guy?" Marshmallow nodded feebly. "Well, it's not true. People are just scared of you because you're different. Trust me, I know how it feels."

He was way too big to hug, but Marshmallow knelt down so Elsa could place her palm on his face.

"You're not a freak, Marshmallow." Elsa patted the tiara on his head. "You're my baby."

Marshmallow's face lit up. "You're my mama."

Elsa kissed him on the nose. Marshmallow would've replied in kind, but his mouth was big enough to swallow Elsa whole, so instead he settled for nuzzling her.

Elsa was in the middle of doing likewise with the other two snowmen when she heard footsteps behind her. "So, these are your snowmen? Fascinating." It was Admiral Klaus, looking only mildly interested in the magical, living snow before his eyes.

"Admiral?" frowned Elsa, turning to meet him. "What brings you here?"

"I overheard the commotion." Klaus gestured to what remained of the pedestrians, who were eyeing the snowmen from a safe distance. "Like I said – hysterical idiots."

"They'll get used to my snowmen eventually." As Elsa spoke, Cloud, Cottonball, and Marshmallow got bored and wandered off to resume scratching their rears.

"With all due respect, Your Majesty," said Klaus, bowing slightly, "I can't help but notice that you give off the impression of weakness."

Her face hardened. "I'm _not_ weak."

"I'm not saying you are, but, to the citizens of Arendelle, what's actually true isn't as important as how it's presented. Brandr knows this. I've seen his type before. Fae, human, it's all the same – He's a bully. He wants to make you feel powerless so he can provoke you into doing something stupid."

"I know that," said Elsa tightly. "But Brandr's more than a bully – He's a monster. He's hunted my people like animals, and he's proud ofit."

"All the more reason not to be reckless about this," shrugged Klaus. "The stakes are high. You can't afford to act stupid."

"It's easy for you to say that, but _you're_ not the one he's targeting." Elsa clenched her fists. "He knows exactly how to upset me. He took my Ice Palace from me."

Klaus met her eyes, a twinge of annoyance crossing his stoicism. "So what? Let Brandr tear it down if he wants to."

"The palace is important to me," said Elsa, scowling.

"The palace is nothing but a monument to your weakness," said Klaus. "You ran away from your people. You were _hiding _in that palace. You had to be dragged back to your kingdom in chains."

"I didn't want to hurt people!"

"And _why_ were you hurting people, exactly?" Klaus's calm demeanor had vanished entirely. "You're not a powerful sorceress – You're a little girl who lashes out when she's scared. And when you get scared, all you know how to do is unleash your powers or- or _build_ _castles _with them like a child playing in the sand!" He pointed to the ice-covered palace behind them.

Elsa was trembling.

"If you were _really _strong, you'd solve your problems by outsmarting them," said Klaus. "Instead, all you do is pray your magic fixes things while you rely on people like your sister as an emotional crutch."

Vapors of frost fumed off Elsa's fists.

"Look at yourself," scoffed Klaus, glaring at them. "Even now, you're so upset, you can barely hold back your ice." He stormed off without another word.

Elsa stood in the courtyard another few minutes. After a great deal of effort, she got her fists to stop fuming.

"Mama?" A concerned Marshmallow returned to Elsa's end of the courtyard.

"I'm fine, big guy." Elsa turned away, hiding her face. "Don't worry about me." She vanished through the castle doors, leaving behind a troubled snowman.

* * *

"Elsa?" Anna finally found her sister in the library, but the instant she laid eyes on her, Anna could tell something was wrong. Elsa was sitting at a desk with a book open in front of her, which was weird because 1) Elsa wasn't too fond of reading for leisure, and 2) that was _Dad's_ desk.

"Oh, Anna." Her voice shook Elsa back into alertness.

"Whatchya reading?" asked Anna.

"Nothing, nothing," said Elsa, shutting the cover. "Sorry, Anna, I need to be alone for a little while. Please don't worry about me. I'm fine."

"O-Okay, Elsa," said a disarmed Anna. "If that's what you really want-" She couldn't finish before Elsa was out the room.

Anna was left alone in the library, glaring at the closed door. She almost ran after Elsa, but then she caught sight of the book resting on the desk – the one Elsa had so hurriedly shut as soon as she saw Anna coming. Huh, look at that, there was a snowflake on the cover. Her curiosity got the better of her, and Anna peeked inside. Ugh, it was all written in some crazy ancient tongue. Anna didn't know any foreign languages. Well, she was _supposed_ to know French, but it wasn't _Anna's_ fault gazing out the window had happened to be much more interesting than listening to her tutor.

Luckily, it turned out there were a bunch of loose papers in here with the translation. Of course, having to read her dad's handwriting wasn't much easier. Hmm, looked like this was an old book on cryomancy. So _that's_ why her dad had always been so secretive about all that time he spent in the library. It didn't seem like there was much useful info in here, though. From the parts Anna bothered to skim through, the book was mostly secondhand accounts and old legends that didn't say much about how cryomancy actually worked.

That's when Anna noticed a chunk of the tome that had a lot more loose papers closed in it. She flipped over to find pages that weren't quite as dusty as the other ones. Aha! This was the part Elsa had been reading. Alrighty, then, Anna figured there was no harm in seeing what Elsa had found so interesting...

The pictures seemed to depict a woman who looked kinda like Elsa if Elsa ran around naked and never brushed her hair, alongside a buncha kids and some snowmen. They were gorgeous illustrations, but the rest of the pages were just incomprehensible runes, so Anna put the book aside and focused on the papers with the translation.

Hey, this looked kind of cool, actually. It was like something out of one of her story books:

_I__n the Dark Ages, a sinful__ husband and wife were punished with a curse upon their child. __T__hey abandoned the infant in the barren tundra, __b__ut they did not realize that its sorcery could sustain it, helpless as it was. As the girl grew, so too did her curse, until nary a thing escaped her touch without falling to the cold. Her beauty was unprecedented, but so too was her cruelty. Her mind was __like__ an animal__'s__, senseless and uneducated. She did not control her curse – __I__t controlled her._

_Such was the case until a man from the mountains crossed her path. The only man to not show her fear. And so it was that the woman learned of love, and for the first time, the curse was contained. This man cared for her like no other soul had ever done. He fed her, taught her to speak, read, and write, tended to her every need. __W__ith each act, her devotion to him grew. It grew until she carried his child. A child she would love above all else in her world. _

_But the child was mortal, and her womb was cold._

_In her grief, her control was lost, and the woman's sorcery consumed __everything__. It grew until there was no husband, no greenery, no __life_._ Nothing __but__ an endless expanse of white. And in her madness, the woman birthed life from the snow. The emptiness left in her curse's wake became her kingdom, where she and her "children" lived as a family. But her creations did not satisfy her. She searched, traveling the world, for those who could survive the winter she brought wherever she went. For those that did not perish were the same as her. The cold could not touch them._

_And so it was that her family grew, and the world came to know and fear the name Mother Winter. As her snow devoured more and more of the land, the mortals grew more and more fearful, with any town found bordering the ever-expanding snow soon abandoned. But the regions untouched by the cold grew increasingly smaller. Nothing could halt the coming of winter._

_Until a stranger arrived atop a black stallion. _

Anna blinked. The translation abruptly cut off halfway down the page. It took her a moment to realize with a pang in her chest that, _oh_, this was her father's latest project. His _last _project.

After taking a minute to collect herself, Anna returned to the tome. Looked like she'd just have to piece together the rest of the story from the pictures. Let's see... Here was the woman – Anna guessed it must be Mother Winter – with her weird snowman-slash-adopted-cryomancer-children family. They looked pretty happy together.

Anna turned the page. The last few illustrations had been mostly colored white and light blue. Now the pictures were primarily crimson. Anna stared at the pages, slackjawed with horror. These pictures were _detailed_, right down to the looks of agony on the children's faces. Gingerly, Anna turned the page to find the unmistakable, ugly mug of a certain faerie staring back at her.

There were pictures of Brandr riding into a town on a black horse, of a mob standing around him, lights flowing out of them and into a violet, half-formed blade hovering in the air... And on the next page, pictures of people fleeing through the streets as countless, dark, apelike silhouettes with green, feline eyes climbed out of the windows of houses, bawling infants in their arms. And Brandr, of course, was at the front of the horde of creatures, overlooking the display with an even more smug grin than usual.

And on the page after that... Mother Winter standing over the carnage that was once her family, a manic gleam in her eyes... And on the one after that, a two-page spread of Brandr dual-weilding his crystal blades, staring down an impossibly vast army of snow-monsters with Mother Winter at the lead.

And that was the end of the illustrations.

Even with the story finished, Ana's eyes didn't leave the page. _Oh God. _Brandr had slaughtered an entire family of cryomancers _and_ an army of snowmen, and this was the guy _Elsa _was supposed to beat?

A split-second later, Anna was dashing through the castle halls, yelling, "_Gerda! __Gerda__! Have you seen Elsa? Which way did she go?_"

Anna fought back the memory of riding in the carriage away from the fjords, praying Elsa was in the castle... and the memory of that nightmare Anna had had right before her little tussle with Mary. This wasn't happening again. _This wasn't happening again._

Nothing in the bedchambers. Elsa _had_ to be around somewhere! Nothing in the courtyard, either. Dang it, where was she?

* * *

Elsa was inside a cloud. The inside of a cloud was cold and empty. There were no people inside clouds. There were no faerie threatening to kill you inside clouds. In fact, there were no problems of any sort inside clouds.

And this wasn't just any cloud. It was a cloud Elsa had made herself. A snow cloud, specifically, and one that was spewing quite a bit of snow over the landscape of Arendelle. Nowhere inhabited, of course – Elsa was depressed, not out of her mind – just on some of the trees. Most of them were dried out and dead anyways thanks to the drought.

Elsa focused on increasing the power of her blizzard, letting the freezing fog swirl around the grass at her ankles. She wasn't focusing on the faerie or the drought. She _certainly_ wasn't focusing on Admiral Klaus's words concerning weakness.

Weak? Her, weak? Ha! She was the Snow Queen. She could end the drought right now if she wanted to. The only reason she hadn't done it already was because she'd been holding back.

Elsa closed her eyes. She could feel the air cooling around her, gradually falling to a temperature that wouldn't shrivel up crops. It was working. The next thing Elsa knew, the brown grass was greening, and what trees were still in the ground were sprouting leaves. She laughed in awe. It was just like when she'd thawed the eternal winter – Her powers were bringing dead plants to life. This proved it... This proved the wight was wrong. Elsa's powers weren't meant for death at all.

A wave of green crossed the grass...

_Yes._

...but then the green wave retreated, then faded completely, leaving nothing but brown.

No, no, she'd had it! Elsa had had it! She'd-

Elsa cried out as bits of hail struck her head. She raised her arms to protect herself, but the gesture sent another wave through the shrubbery. This one wasn't a green wave, though. It wasn't even a brown wave. It was a black wave. And it didn't stop at the plants Elsa had brought to life a second ago. _Every_ piece of plant life in a wide radius was rotting away.

"_No! __Stop!_" Elsa shut her eyes, willing the rot to halt, but it wouldn't listen. The black spread farther and farther until finally, Elsa lost herself completely and fell to the dirt, panting. The decay finally stopped. Instead of rotting, the grass at the outermost rim of black simply froze in ice. Her powers were back to normal.

Elsa was on knees, her hands pressed against the blackened ground. The dead grass was so cold, it actually bothered Elsa for once. She withdrew her hands, shocked.

_You really have to ask that? After everything that's happened, you think I'm going to use my magic over such a wide area without completely understanding how it works? I can't account for everyone. If __anything__ went wrong... __I__f even __one more person__ was..._

Elsa's eyes were fixed on one of the rotted, uprooted oak trees. But what she was really seeing was a different oak tree. One at the top of a hill.

This was the breaking point. Every bad thing that'd ever happened to Elsa hit her at once, and she was reduced to a hysterical mess, sobbing into the freezing, dead grass. Elsa pulled herself out of the dirt, but only enough to stare at her palms. She was alone. She had feelings nobody else in the entire world would ever have.

_A stairway of ice forming before her eyes... An entire palace erupting around her with the stomp of her feet..._

Elsa had family and friends and loved ones... but none who were like _her_. None who could _understand_. Wind and snow was swirling around Elsa at an alarming speed. She hardly noticed.

_Brandr's sneering face. An ocean of red in the tome's illustrations. __An endless ocean of mangled-_

Elsa was broken from her self-pitying sobs by something cold hitting her in the back of the neck. She paused, wiped her eyes, and slowly turned around to find a perfect rose of ice floating in the air.


	48. First Impressions

The dead grass at her feet didn't matter and the uprooted trees didn't matter and the faerie waiting to kill her didn't matter. All of a sudden, the only thing in Elsa's world was a perfect rose of ice floating in the air. A perfect rose of ice which _she_ hadn't made.

At first, Elsa stood there, staring somewhat stupidly at it. But then the flower darted away through the trees, and the next thing she knew, Elsa was sprinting through the forest in her heels. The magical flower made some sharp and sudden turns, and Elsa nearly crashed into a tree trunk more than once, but she didn't care. She wasn't about to let this thing get away from her.

With every twist and turn through the forest trail, Elsa's heart pumped faster and faster and faster and faster until finally the flying flower came to an abrupt halt and her heart did likewise.

Elsa brought a hand to her mouth. She tried to say something, but her throat would only allow her a couple of awed gibberish noises. The rose had led her to a riverbed in the middle of the woods. There was water, but thanks to the drought, it was more a trickle than a river... and absolutely none of it was liquid.

"Caught you."

The ice-rose did a figure-eight, looping around Elsa first and then the boy standing on the ice.

His eyes. That was the first thing Elsa noticed. They almost shone like a pair of diamonds in his face. Even from several feet away, Elsa could tell the irises were the deepest blue she'd seen since the last time she looked in a mirror. His skin was like a fresh snowfall, so perfectly white it made Elsa's look tan by comparison. Even the boy's teeth had a shine to them, which Elsa could see because he was showing off all of them. The only things that detracted from his presence were his hair, which, while just as silvery and radiant as the rest of him, looked like it hadn't touched a comb since the days the earth was young, and the colorless rags draped across his body, which looked like they'd been soaked to the bone and dried off a couple hundred times.

He seemed right around Elsa's age, too. No... No, this had to be a dream. An illusion sent by the faerie to toy with her. Another accidental snowman like Mary. He couldn't be _real_.

"Knew I... would..." The boy took his first step forward. He sounded like he'd just had a long coughing fit. "Just... had to... set the... bait... Like fish..." He didn't make it to the second step.

"Are you hurt?" Elsa got over being awestruck and ran to the river to help him to his feet.

"Nothing I can't... handle..." he said with a smile. The boy took her outstretched hand and pulled himself up. Elsa nearly flinched at the skin contact. His hand was as cold as the blackened grass she'd made. "I... came a long way, Your Majesty... Heard Arendelle had winter a bit early this year."

Before this moment, Elsa hadn't realized you could make your cheeks hurt from smiling too much. "Are you... like me?"

The boy gave her a smirk that said, "What do you think, genius?" then held out his palm and conjured a second ice-rose.

Elsa laughed. It wasn't the usual kind of laugh you have when you hear something funny. It was pure joy escaping her mouth. She held out her own palm and made an ice-rose of her own. A breath of cold air sent his rose to snuggle up against hers, but that pushed Elsa's out of her hand. It fell and shattered against the frozen river.

"I don't know how to make my ice float like that," she said.

"I can teach you."

Elsa was almost worried for herself. It couldn't be healthy to go from being grief-stricken to feeling like _this_ in the span of seconds.

"Who are you?" she finally asked.

"Daniel," answered the boy. "I'm Daniel."

Elsa beamed. "I'm Elsa."

"Yeah," smirked Daniel with a slight roll of his eyes. "Everyone this side of the Atlantic knows who you are. Most of 'em are terrified of you."

"Well..." Elsa laughed again. "I suppose you haven't made quite as much of a name for yourself?"

"If I freeze a country, I'll be sure to let you know."

"Where did you come from?"

"Really, _really_ far away," said Daniel. "I didn't know where else to go... Came to Arendelle... Saw that little snowstorm just now... Figured it was you."

Elsa frowned. "Do you have a home?"

Daniel's eyes met the ground. "No."

Elsa took his arm. "You do now."

"_No_." But Daniel pulled out of her grasp. He tried to back away and almost lost his balance again. "No, no, I can't. You don't understand-"

"Daniel, if the people of Arendelle are fine being _ruled_ by a cryomancer, I hardly think they'll-"

But Elsa's voice trailed off as she watched Daniel tumble into the dirt. His hand struck a dry patch of riverbed... and immediately cased it in ice.

Elsa connected the dots, then put her smile back on. "How about we make a deal? You teach me how to make my ice float in the air, and I'll teach you how to not freeze everything you touch."

"Yeah... Yeah, sounds like a plan." Daniel made another unsuccessful attempt to return to his feet.

"Can you walk?" asked Elsa, helping him up again. She glanced at Daniel's chest beneath his loose rags. He made Fritz look buff.

"I can," said Daniel. "When I'm not starving to death."

* * *

"Gerda?"

The old maid had been exiting the queen's bedroom with a fuller laundry basket than usual – containing the dress Elsa had worn to the art exhibit – when Elsa approached her from behind.

"Gerda, fix a plate of leftovers from the kitchens and bring it here. Don't tell anybody about this."

Poor Gerda was left scurrying down to the castle kitchens in the middle of the night. She prepared the plate of food with trembling hands. By giving her this plate, Gerda knew she would become an instrument in the queen's demise. But she was powerless to stop the horror. She'd been given direct orders. It was all Gerda could do to keep from bursting into tears.

_Queen Elsa's diet was ruined!_

* * *

Elsa couldn't take her eyes off him. Apparently, there was nothing Daniel could do that didn't fascinate her, be it making pretty flowers from ice or sitting in her bed, messily devouring a chicken leg.

"Feeling better?" Elsa asked from the bedside chair.

"You can't begin to imagine how hungry I was," said Daniel as he licked the last bits of juice off his fingers. "Sorry if I made a mess."

"It's fine." Elsa let out a sigh. "Daniel, I know you're scared, but there's really no reason to keep yourself hidden from the palace staff."

At her words, the plate of food suddenly found itself covered in ice.

"Sorry, sorry," grumbled Daniel, dropping it to the floor. "Happens when I'm upset..."

Elsa picked up the frozen dish for examination. After a brief experiment, she discovered she couldn't thaw another cryomancer's ice with her own magic. "So it doesn't _always _happen?"

"Only most of the time." Daniel brushed off the crumbs and threw himself over the bedspread. "I'm not quite as powerful as you. I can barely make enough ice to cover this room, let alone all of Arendelle."

"From what I understand, your case is the normal one," said Elsa. "I don't know why my sorcery is so much stronger."

"Strength's never been my forte," said Daniel. "My upper limit's about five hundred roses – I've counted. After that, I crash, as you saw. Problem is, I can't control when I do and don't make the ice, so..."

Elsa looked over him, the slightest hint of sadness creeping into her face. "Daniel, I had control over my ice at first... until... until something bad happened."

Daniel rolled over on the mattress, hiding his face.

"After that, I let myself live in fear, and... I didn't fully accept that I was loved. The day I finally regained control was the day I realized... love willthaw. If you want control, Daniel, you need to open yourself up to-"

"I know that!" Daniel suddenly snapped. "I had love. I just... don't anymore. That's why I came here."

There was silence.

"Well, I hope you find what you're looking for," said Elsa softly.

The silence persisted until the sound of shouting reached them from outside the empty door frame. "_E__lsa? __E__lsa, are you up here?_"

"That's my sister," said Elsa, rising to her feet. "I'm going to bring her in here. I don't keep secrets from Anna. But you can trust her, alright?"

Daniel's only reply was a small nod.

* * *

Anna was expecting a lot of things when she finally found her sister in the bedchambers hallway. Mostly, she was expecting yet another sisterly bout of crying, consoling, and hug-fests. What she was _not_ expecting was for Elsa to almost knock her off her feet with the ferocity of her hug and then declare, her voice overflowing with glee, "Anna! Something incredible's happened!"

"Whoa, that sexist old advisor was right, you _are_ having mood swings- Agh!"

Anna was practically dragged into Elsa's bedroom and plopped before the pale, sickly boy in her bed.

"Um... Hi," said a disoriented Anna.

"This is Daniel." It was a little surreal for Anna to be the calm one in comparison to her bouncy sister. Elsa's voice was literally shaking as she said, "He's a cryomancer!"

"Oh, wow, uh..." Somehow, as she met eyes with him, Anna couldn't bring herself to feel her usual bubbliness. "That's... something."

"Pleased to make your acquaintance," said Daniel. "I'd shake your hand, but then it might freeze and fall off."

Anna brought her hand to her temple. Something was... _off_ here, but she couldn't put her finger on it. "What brings you here, uh, Dan?"

"Trying to escape from people trying to kill me," said Daniel flatly.

"He heard about my eternal winter." Elsa moved herself a tad farther from Anna, a tad closer to Daniel. "Daniel came here to be with someone like himself."

"Well, that's... great!" Anna wasn't exactly on the verge of smiling, so she faked it. "Glad to meet you, Dan! Danielle! Danny boy! Um, random question time – How old are you?"

Daniel bowed his head. "I don't know anymore. I was eighteen when I left home, but... it's been so long. I haven't kept track."

"Right, right," nodded Anna. "Where did you say you were from?"

"_Far away_," said Daniel, scowling. "I'd actually rather not talk about it, if that's alright with you."

Elsa took Anna's arm. "Excuse us for a minute, Daniel. I need to speak to my sister in private."

"I was just gonna say the same thing." She let Elsa lead her out into the hall.

Once they were a good distance from the doorless doorway, Elsa said, "Is something the matter, Anna? You don't seem very... _happy_ about this." The obvious disappointment on her face was almost enough to make Anna apologize on the spot.

"No, no, I'm glad for you, Elsa!" said Anna hurriedly. "Really, I am. This just... came out of nowhere, that's all."

"It's a miracle," nodded Elsa. "It's like he answered my prayers."

"Yeah, that's another thing. Doesn't this seem a little... perfect?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, one minute you're all freaked out because of that Brandr jerk, and you read that book on Dad's desk and get upset-"

"Oh." Elsa's face fell. "You know about that?"

"I... peeked at it after you left," said Anna. "All those people like you who got killed... Look, what I'm trying to say is, _right _when you're feeling your loneliest, _right _when you _want_ another person like you, _that's _when he shows up..."

"Has he done something to earn your distrust?" asked Elsa, pursing her lips.

"Has he done something to earn your _trust__?_" countered Anna. "The guy's a creep! He's all tragic and shiny and _soooo _sympathetic with everything you've ever been through and _he's too_ _perfect__!_ Doesn't it leave you with a bad taste in your mouth?"

"Oh, Anna..." Elsa took her hand. "I see what's happening. Anna, listen to me, just because Hans hurt you doesn't mean-"

"_What__?_ This isn't about that!" Anna yanked her hand away.

"Then what _is_ it about?"

"I... err..." Anna failed to meet her eyes. "I've been having dreams about this guy."

Now Elsa was the one with the skeptical eyebrows.

"No, wait, hear me out, Elsa! I've been having these weird dreams for the past few weeks where I'm all like, 'You can do it, too? Wooooooooow, that's amaaaaaaazing! Just wait 'til I tell Elsa!' It took me a while to figure it out, but it's gotta be another cryomancer. And _Daniel's_ another cryomancer! But the dude in my dream was a grown-up when we were kids, and Daniel looks your age, and he said he lived really far away, so how could he be in Arendelle as a kid anyways? It doesn't add up. Something's fishy, right?"

Elsa's expression was unchanged.

* * *

"And then she said I have an 'overactive imagination!' Can you believe her?"

Anna paused to give the portrait of the reindeer playing cards a chance to reply.

"Uh huh, uh huh," she nodded. "I _know_, right? It's totally unfair!"

There was another pause. Then Anna turned to scowl at the dude looking up the lady's dress in _The Swing_. "Yes, I _know_ at first I thought Hans was dreamy and Kristoff was a creep. That doesn't mean my creep-radar doesn't work right sometimes. I bet beneath his innocent facade, Daniel's a total jerk."

* * *

"Sorry about her," said Elsa as she returned to her bedroom. "Anna's an amazing person, but she can be headstrong. And she's... had issues with men lying to her before."

"Don't worry, it's a welcome change from people's usual reaction to me." While she was gone, Daniel had crawled out of bed, and he was now sitting cross-legged before the snowwoman in the corner of the room. "What's this?"

Elsa sighed, then seated herself beside him. "It's a memorial to someone lost during the winter... During _my_ winter..."

You could hear a pin drop.

"It's the worst feeling in the world, isn't it?" Daniel's voice was barely audible. "Once it happens, your life is changed forever. No going back."

Slowly, cautiously, Elsa reached out a hand and intertwined her fingers with his. "You really _do_ understand me?" It was kind of halfway between a question and a statement.

"I killed someone the day I was born." Daniel shut his eyes. "When I came into the world, she didn't even say it hurt. Just complained it was cold. I don't actually remember, of course, but... my dad made sure I never forgot." He gave a very, _very_ bitter laugh.

"Daniel..."

"I had to leave, Elsa." Now his voice was shaking. "I couldn't stay locked in that room forever. But... no matter what I do, I can't stop hurting people." As he spoke, his free hand brushed the ground, casing the snowy carpet with more frost. "But I can't hurt _you_." He met Elsa's eyes. Now his seemed less jewel-like, more watery. "I searched for so long for someone like me. I don't know how many years I spent alone. Do you know how happy I was when I first saw you?"

"I do, Daniel," said Elsa with a small smile. "Because I feel the same way. You're not alone anymore. You know, I-" She gave a considerably less bitter laugh. "I really wasn't expecting my family to grow so quickly. But I'm glad it is. We'll have your ice under control soon, I promise."

Daniel nodded slowly.

"So you were locked away, too, I take it?" added Elsa.

"Yeah," said Daniel. "Difference is, I wasn't a mysterious princess. Nobody knew or cared who I was. I think my dad forgot I existed most of the time."

"So you were _completely _alone?"

Daniel bowed his head. "I had my brother. But... when I ran away, I had to leave him."

"Maybe once your powers are under control, we can find him again?"

"He's better off without me."

"_Daniel_." Elsa released a hand so she could lift his chin up, meeting his eyes. "You can't shut your family out. You'll have to accept that if you ever want control."

At first, he stayed silent. Then, Daniel took a breath and said, "The day I ran away from home-"

"Uh, hi, me again." But it was at this moment that a voice spoke up from the doorway. The cryomancers turned around to see a pigtail-wearing redhead standing there. "I, err, didn't mean to eavesdrop. Sorry," said Anna. "Danny- Daniel, I, uh... might have misjudged you. I think we got off on the wrong foot."

"No, no, you're right not to trust me," said Daniel. "I'm dangerous."

"Well, uh, wanna hug it out?" Anna somewhat awkwardly offered her outstretched arms.

"I _can_, but I don't think you'll like it very much." Daniel wiggled his fingers and conjured up a little flurry of ice crystals to illustrate his point.

"Oh, yeah, right." Anna drew back, clearing her throat.

"What was that you were saying about the day you ran away?" asked Elsa.

Daniel's eyes flickered towards Anna. "Another time. I think what I need right now is some rest."

"Good idea." Elsa rose to her feet and made for the door. "Oh, but Daniel, I'm going to alert the staff about you. Only the ones I trust. You'll be perfectly safe, I promise. We can get you your own room with guards outside the door and maids waiting on you."

"Wow, I should've come to Arendelle sooner," Daniel chuckled as he crawled into bed.

"Good night, Daniel." And with that, Elsa walked past her sister and down the hallway.

Now Anna and Daniel were left alone.

"Night," said Anna. "Don't let the frostbite bite." When she was met only with silence, she made for the doorway herself. She was about to leave, but then one last question struck her. "So, uh, why _did_ you come to Arendelle, exactly? Why _now__?_"

"I came as soon as I heard," said Daniel from beneath the covers, which were now covered in frost. "I can only go so fast on foot. Trust me, Princess Anna, you've got nothing to worry about from me. I couldn't hurt your sister if I wanted to. As for _why_ I came here..." He rolled over to meet her eyes. "I guess I want what _you_ have."

"Good looks?" smirked Anna.

Daniel smirked back. "Good night."

Anna skipped down the hall feeling considerably reassured. At her bouncy pace, it only took her only a couple seconds to catch up with Elsa.

"Well, now we've got _two_ of you ice-people running around," said Anna. "That's bound to be fun."

"I still can't believe this is really happening," smiled Elsa.

"Sooooooo... when are we planning on telling him about the cryomancer-slayer living next door?"

"Let him rest first."


	49. Brother's Future

"Your Majesty?"

There was another cryomancer in the world. Another person besides Elsa who'd been locked away, who'd grown up isolated, who'd watched helplessly as their powers ended a life...

"Your Majesty?"

Elsa wondered if he shared her passion for ice-architecture. Did he get that same rush in the pit of his stomach from creating beautiful forms in the ice? Anna appreciated Elsa's Ice Palace and her ice-coating around Arendelle Castle, of course, but sometimes Elsa wondered if she really _cared_ or if she was just playing it up to keep Elsa happy. And Kristoff was impressed with it, too, but Elsa suspected he was only interested in the quality of the ice compared to what he hauled. But, well, Daniel had made those roses, hadn't he? He _had _to understand the joys of-

"_Queen Elsa._"

"Huh-? Oh, yes!" Elsa's vision came back into focus to find every last advisor in the council chamber staring her down. Elsa gave a start and sat up straighter on her icy throne. "You were saying?" she said, doing her best to sound like she'd been paying attention to the last half-hour.

"The state of the country," the councilman repeated, his brow creasing. "That ordeal with your snowmen the other day has made quite an impact. The palace budget was strained enough with the food prices _before_ we had to repair the damage to the town square, and now on top of that, we have citizens refusing to pay their taxes. With no sign of the drought easing up, there's been record numbers of emigrants to our neighboring..."

Were his powers exactly the same as Elsa's, or did they have their minute differences? At the very least, they seemed to have manifested in different ways. Elsa had never thought to try to lift objects with her wintry winds. What else could Daniel do that she couldn't? Every time Elsa thought she had a handle on how exactly her powers worked, she'd surprise herself by building a giant ice-palace or bringing a snowman to life. Daniel could show her _anything._

"Your Majesty?"

Elsa flinched, then glanced at the clock. "Err... Yes. Keep doing what we're doing. I thought we'd decided to tough out this drought, hadn't we? Just make sure no citizens try to visit Brandr at the North Mountain, and if he's spotted anywhere else, let me know. That's all there is to say, really. Meeting's over." She hopped up and made for the door.

"But Your Majesty!" said a councilman. "You never gave your opinion on my amazing plan where you make an army of snowman-farmers to farm the land for increased food production-"

"Yes, yes, that's fine." The door shut behind her.

It went without saying that Elsa made a bee-line for Daniel's bedroom. He'd been given the nicest guest bedroom available with guards and maids as promised. By now, most of the palace staff was aware Elsa had taken in a sickly boy, but only a trusted few were allowed close enough to see his sorcery. The rest were left to speculate on why the queen visited him so frequently and why his bedsheets were always covered in frost whenever the maids washed them.

"Daniel? Are you awake?" Elsa was surprised to find the door answered by Anna.

"Hey, Elsa, you're late to the party!" Kristoff and Olaf were already inside, huddled around Daniel's bedside.

"Elsa, you never told me you had a twin brother!" said Olaf.

Elsa gathered with the others by the bed, the dullness of the council meeting quickly fading from memory. "I see you two have already acquainted yourselves with Daniel."

"Yeah!" said an enthused Olaf. "Does this mean I get to have cousins?"

Daniel sat up halfway out the covers. "Well, I've never tried to bring a snowman to life before, but I doubt I've got enough magic to pull it off. I feel drained enough from making regular ice."

"It's pretty cool that you could come here," Kristoff told him. "How many people with crazy ice-powers are running around in the world, anyways?"

Daniel sighed. "I don't know _how_ long I searched. I thought I was the only one, but then I heard about Queen Elsa. Who knows? Maybe most cryomancers are just better at hiding than us?"

"Well, nice meeting you. I'd better get going." Kristoff turned to the doorway. "Actually, if you don't mind being left alone for a minute, I need to talk to the girls."

"That's fine. I'm feeling tired again anyways..."

The sisters followed Kristoff out into the hall, and Olaf came, too, so he could tell himself he was participating.

"What do you think?" Anna asked.

"I definitely see your point," said Kristoff pensively. "The guy seems a little _too_ well-behaved. I don't think he's got some kind of Hans-style plan to take the throne or anything, but I'd bet my pointy boots the guy's got some serious issues. You can't be locked up for years without getting a few problems. Um, no offense," he added, shooting Elsa a concerned glance.

Elsa's eyes narrowed. "Were you scrutinizing him for wrongdoings? Anna, I thought you admitted you'd misjudged him! Why can't you accept that something _good's_ happened to me for once?"

"I was just getting Kristoff's opinion!" Anna's hands attached themselves to her hips of their own volition. "Why are you defending him so much?"

"Uh, to be fair, Elsa, you were just as paranoid about me before, remember?" said Kristoff. "Or would you have been totally fine with me right off the bat if I'd had ice-powers?"

Elsa let out a sigh. "You're right, Kristoff. I'm sorry. But whatever problems Daniel has, I'm prepared to deal with them. Assuming he's telling the truth – and we have no reason to assume otherwise – then Daniel's been through the exact same things I have. He deserves the same chance to fix his life that I was given."

"I like Daniel," said Olaf. "He's the second nicest, gentlest, warmest person ever!"

"Well, I'm glad _one_ of you agrees with me." Elsa knelt to give Olaf an affectionate pat on the back. That's when her eyes fell on his face. "Wait, why isn't your nose orange?"

"I couldn't find any carrots," said Olaf. "I had to use a parsnip." He crossed his eyes to glare at his cream-colored nose.

"Yeah, I'm getting pretty sick of this drought shriveling up all the carrots," sighed Kristoff. "C'mon, Sven and me are going into town to spend the rest of our life's savings buying a couple more. You can come, too."

"Thanks! My face just feels wrong without a carrot, y'know?"

"Are you sure you don't wanna keep your nose the way it is, though? It'd be a lot safer. Sven hates parsnip."

Olaf looked blank. "What does that have to do with my nose?"

"Never mind..."

The pair started to leave down the hallway, but then Kristoff paused and turned to examine one of the ice-covered suits of armor.

"What's wrong?" frowned Anna.

"I just got an idea. How about you take _this_ master of stealth-" Kristoff lifted up the visor and reached a hand inside. "-and put him up to something more productive than stalking Anna and me?" There was an earsplitting squawk, and then his hand emerged with a squirming snowbird in it.

* * *

"Why are you going through my sock drawer?" asked Daniel.

"Oh, it's- it's nothing." Anna hurriedly turned around. "I was just... looking for something. It's not important." She scurried out the room.

Daniel frowned, but he thought nothing else of it. Had he been more observant, he might have noticed the little white head poking out from the half-opened drawer.

* * *

"I really don't think this is necessary," huffed Elsa.

Anna started to roll her eyes at Elsa's umpteenth complaint, but then she caught sight of the snowwoman in the corner. It struck her that this might run deeper than Elsa simply being annoying.

"Uh, Elsa," Anna said carefully. "When a stranger with magical powers shows up on your doorstep, I don't think it's _too_ unreasonable to keep an eye on him. Why are you acting like Daniel can do no wrong?"

"I'm _not._" Elsa failed to meet her eyes. "I can just... tell he's genuine. He's not trying to woo me like Hans did to you. He's expressing feelings nobody but me has ever felt. We're the same."

"Yeah, well, Hans had siblings who shut him out of his life, too, but that didn't make him the same as-"

"Your Majesty." The snowbird suddenly fluttered into the room. "Daniel is awake."

The sisters snapped to attention.

"He rose out of the covers and onto his feet-" the snowbird began.

"Aha!" said a triumphant Anna. "He told us he could barely walk! He's _faking__!_"

"-and then he fell to the floor, and he can't get back up."

Elsa shot Anna a nasty look, then rushed out the door.

* * *

Elsa and Anna arrived in the guest bedroom to find Daniel attempting to climb back into bed with nothing but his arms.

"_Daniel!_" Elsa was at his side immediately to help him into the covers. "Are you alright? Why are you by yourself? Where are the maids?"

"I... sent them away..." said Daniel, more ice creeping out his fingertips as he spoke. "Didn't wanna... hurt them..."

Elsa's face switched from concerned to pitying. "Daniel, I gave you maids who were on the staff when I was a girl. They know how to handle this."

Daniel put his head on the pillow and rolled over without another word.

"We really ought to get a doctor to check him out," said Anna. "He looks kinda crippled..."

"I'm not crippled!" Daniel rolled back around to scowl at her. "I'm just... weak from making so much ice."

"Here's an idea," said Elsa. "Why don't I go ahead and teach you to control your powers? Are you feeling up to it?"

Daniel nodded. "I can _try_..."

"Well..." Elsa retrieved a half-eaten plate of food from the bedside table, nothing left but a pile of chicken bones and some untouched fruit. She held up an apple. "When I gained control, it was like I had an epiphany. In this one moment, I realized love was the answer, and just like that, everything thawed." She seated herself at the foot of Daniel's bed. "I don't know how to make you feel the way I felt, but I guess I can try and explain it to you."

Daniel sat up under the covers. "What caused your change of heart?"

"It was Anna." Elsa glanced over at her. "One of the men tried to kill me to end the winter, and... even though I froze her heart... she jumped in the way of the sword. And in this one moment, I realized how wrong I'd been, and I knew she loved me no matter what." The sisters smiled at each other.

Slowly, Daniel's eyes traveled to the princess. There was something like surprise or disbelief in them.

"I think the important part," said Elsa, offering the apple to him, "is the certainty. If you want to control your ice, you have to _know_ that you're safe, accepted, and loved. I imagine, even after you ran away from home, you were always on the run... always hiding from people because you were scared of how they'd react to you..."

Daniel stayed silent.

"But that's over, Daniel. I'm working to make Arendelle a place where people like you and me will never be persecuted again. So... you have nothing to fear anymore." She offered him the apple again.

This time, Daniel accepted it. He held on for a second, but then the frost erupted from his fingers – so cold that the fruit stated to wither. Daniel dropped it immediately, shutting his eyes tight. "I'm sorry. I want to believe you."

"It's okay." She placed her hand over his. "You're not going to learn control overnight."

"I know what's wrong," said Anna from the doorway. "He needs family. I mean, you're still a stranger to him, Elsa, so it's not really the same as what you and me have."

Elsa nodded. "Didn't you say you had a brother, Daniel? Maybe we can take you to see him?"

But Daniel didn't look too pleased with the idea. He turned away, hiding his face. "If _that's_ the only way to control it, I don't have much hope."

Elsa and Anna traded uneasy glances.

"Maybe you need more rest," said Elsa. "But Daniel, we need to bring the maids back in here, alright? You're lucky Anna and I noticed you'd fallen."

"I would hurt them," said Daniel. "Come on, _you_ must've accidentally frozen a maid or two all those years you spent locked up, right?"

Elsa failed to meet his eyes. "After the first accident, my parents were extremely careful. There wasn't another incident until the eternal winter."

Daniel's brow creased. "That's impossible. Your powers are _way_ stronger than mine. You must've hurt a _few_ people!"

"No, I..." Elsa winced in spite of herself. "I kept my powers sealed away."

"How?"

"I... wore gloves."

"Gloves?" Daniel looked enlightened. "And they helped? I'd never thought about that before..."

"Well, there was really no reason the gloves should have done anything," said Elsa. "But I was a little girl, and when my parents told me something, I believed them. Besides, it wasn't the physical act of wearing them that mattered so much as what they represented. At first, because my powers are tied to my emotions, my parents tried to train me to hide my feelings."

"So you let yourself be numb to it all?"

"It was a bad idea," Elsa quickly added. "Obviously, had it worked, I would never have frozen Arendelle."

Daniel made a thoughtful grunt, then laid back down on the mattress. "Fine. Bring the maids back in. Just don't blame me if someone gets hurt."

"Nobody's getting hurt, Daniel." And with that, Elsa left the room.

Anna, however, remained behind again.

"Y'know, I bet half the reason you and Elsa have problems with your powers is because you freak yourselves out," she said. "Maybe you've convinced yourself otherwise, but I'm sure your brother loves you a lot-"

"Or maybe you don't know what you're talking about and you should keep your mouth shut?"

"Well, _excuse me_, Prince Charming!" Anna turned for the door, scowling. "I'm just trying to help."

Anna slammed it behind her on the way out. Slamming the door on her sister? Unacceptable. On this guy? She wouldn't exactly lose sleep.

* * *

He was a big man. With his size, his suit, and his money, he ought to have been imposing. But when his suit was half-buttoned and slept in, his face was unshaven, and he had a half-empty bottle in his hand, he looked... Well, actually, he still looked imposing, but for a different reason.

He heaved Daniel back into the bedroom like a piece of cargo. Daniel went skidding across the carpet, sending the mountains of ice-roses scattering about.

"After everything I've done for you, boy?" the man screamed, his words slurred. "You wanna run off with some little tramp and get yourself killed?"

"_Where's_ _Olive__?_" Daniel snarled, turning to glare at him.

"And you _told_ _her_ about your curse?" his father yelled, brandishing the bottle about as he spoke. "You think I want word getting out that I'm housing a freak_?_ That you're my own blood? Do you have _any idea_ what that would do to this family's reputation? To your brother's future?"

"_Where's Olive__?_"

"You're lucky you're still alive! I've got men watching that window now. Try and escape again and your lucks _runs out_, boy."

The door slammed shut.

Daniel stayed there on the carpet, half-buried in roses, breathing heavily. At first he was livid, but after a few minutes, he started to sob.

_Knock-knock, knock, knock-knock._

"Daniel?" came a voice.

"He _knew_, Eric," sniffed Daniel. "He was waiting for us. Like he was never even _going_ on a trip."

"We were turned around!" the voice immediately said. "It was bad weather. There's a blizzard coming through-"

"How did he know, Eric?"

"Well, really, when you think about it, this is a good thing, isn't it? You could have... could have really hurt her. You were... making a mistake..."

"_How did he know, Eric__?_"

Silence.

Finally, the voice said, "I'm sorry."

More silence.

"You _promised_ you wouldn't do this, Daniel. You brought up _our mother_ to reassure me! It wouldn't have mattered that he knew if you hadn't been a liar!"

When it was met with more silence, the voice said nothing else for the rest of the night.

After a while, Daniel reached out for one of the more deformed roses and clamped his fingers around it. "_Brother's future_," he mouthed.

Shards of ice fell from his hand.


	50. Hand In Glove

"I'm telling you, he was a jerk to me!"

The royal sisters were walking down the bedchambers hallway together, Elsa with her arms folded, Anna waving hers about.

"Well, you _can_ be a little overly sensitive, Anna," said Elsa.

"He told me to shut my mouth!"

"You were talking about something personal to him. He might have been legitimately offended."

Anna rolled her eyes. "Elsa, you're doing the thing again."

Elsa raised an eyebrow. "What thing?"

"The thing where you pretend Daniel's Jesus!" Anna pointed an accusing finger at her. "Can't you just admit he needs to learn some manners? Why do you have to agree with everything he says or does?"

"I don't 'agree with everything he says or does,'" scoffed Elsa. "I just find it easy to sympathize with his viewpoint, that's all."

"Ugh, fine, whatever." Anna spun herself around. "You can keep making goo-goo eyes at him if you want, but I've had about as much Daniel today as I can stomach."

Elsa sighed as she returned to Daniel's bedroom alone. Anna didn't understand.

By now, there was a maid seated in the corner, keeping an eye of Daniel's condition. He'd been resting as usual, but he sat up at Elsa's arrival.

"You shouldn't stay trapped in your bedroom forever," said Elsa. "When do you think you'll feel up to walking?"

Daniel gave her a smile, and for once it wasn't a wry, smug one. "Should be sooner than I thought. I've hardly made a drop of ice since I put on _these_." He held up a hand.

Elsa stared. Her chest clenched like it'd been punched. Daniel's smooth, snowy skin was covered by a pale blue glove.

"Pretty fashionable, huh?" said Daniel, his usual smugness returning. "They're supposed to be for girls – some of your old spares, actually – but I guess I have tiny hands because they fit fine. I had a close call with a maid, and then I remembered what you'd said, so I told her to get them for me. I know you thought the gloves were only a placebo, but my magic is so much weaker than yours, I think the fabric alone is enough to-"

"_No!_" cut in Elsa, her voice trembling. "I told you, gloves are a bad idea."

"Maybe for you." Daniel leaned back with his hands behind his head. "I couldn't send Arendelle into eternal winter if I tried. Besides, what would it matter if I kept them on forever, never made ice again in my life?"

"But- But your ice is a part of you!" said Elsa. "Don't you... don't you get that _joy_ from creating with it?"

"Yeah, well, that's the thing about gloves." Daniel made a show of slowly taking one off, wiggling his bare fingers, and then slowly putting it back on.

"You'll never learn control that way," said Elsa. "You're only teaching yourself to hide your feelings."

"So what?" snorted Daniel, pulling the covers over himself. "Maybe that's been my problem all along – I let myself feel too much. Hurts a whole lot less when I shut it out."

Elsa's stomach was tightening again, the same way it had when she'd watched Brandr tear a hole through her Ice Palace. "_No_. You _won't _wear gloves. You're not _allowed_ to."

Daniel scowled at her. "I wasn't aware you were making my decisions for me."

"_Take them off._"

"Make me."

She took him a bit literally. The next thing she knew, Elsa was pinning Daniel's arms, and some dim, reptilian part of her brain noted that, despite being pretty weedy herself, she was _much _stronger than him, which only egged Elsa on. At first his cries were the typical, aggressive, "Get off me!" but they gradually morphed into the more frantic, horrified, "_Get off me!_" followed by heavy breathing.

But Elsa didn't notice until she'd finished tearing the gloves off his hands and inundating them with enough ice to render them unwearable forever.

"Queen Elsa!"

Elsa was brought back into reality by the shocked cries of the maid. Elsa was... looming over a cowering Daniel. His eyes were wide, and his chest was heaving rapidly.

Elsa stared at the scraps of ice-covered fabric in her hands. Had _she_ done that? But... but Elsa had _never_ put her hands on another person before. She'd never even roughhoused with Anna when they were kids!

"Daniel," she said, extending a trembling hand, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to-"

"_Don't touch me!_"

"You- You don't understand!" said Elsa, heart thumping in her chest. "If you wear the gloves, you're only hurting your-"

"Forgive me for not wanting to _accidentally kill people!_" Now Daniel was tearful and furious all at once. "I'm sorry I can't make myself be as blissfully happy as _you._ Not all of us were born in a castle with two parents and a sister who love us."

Elsa took some deep breaths, then turned to the maid, who immediately made an effort to look like she hadn't been staring. "Don't bring him any more gloves," she ordered.

"Yes, Your Majesty."

Elsa ignored the indignant huff Daniel made and marched herself out the room.

* * *

"You were wrong. I don't agree with him on everything."

Elsa found Anna sprawled across Elsa's bed, a snowbird in her lap.

"Yeah, I know." Anna gestured to the bird. "This guy told me the whole thing."

"I don't know what came over me," said Elsa, seating herself on the edge of the mattress.

"I do," said Anna. "Elsa, listen, I know you're happy there's another person like you in the world, but just because he has the same kind of magic as you doesn't make Daniel your clone."

"But 'conceal, don't feel' isn't the answer for _anybody._" Elsa hung her head. "I'm doing something wrong. I can't even make him understand that love thaws."

Anna placed the snowbird on the carpet in order to put her hands on Elsa's shoulders. "Remember when I tried to hook you up with Fritz because I assumed since having a boyfriend made _me_ happy, it'd make _you_ happy, too?"

Elsa nodded.

"This is the same thing," said Anna. "People are different."

"You're right." Elsa let a tiny smile cross her lips. "I just hope Fritz isn't _too_ heartbroken about that..."

* * *

Y'know, Fritz had been worried he'd take Elsa's rejection badly, but all in all he was holding together pretty well. Fritz finished off his fourth tub of mint ice cream, discarding the spoon and empty container carelessly on the floor, then curled up under the covers and hugged Idina the bear as tightly as he could.

He'd planned on spending the rest of his life like this, so even when he heard the knocking at his door, he couldn't find the willpower to answer it until a voice called out, "Fritz?" Like a bee flying to sugar, Fritz threw the door open.

"I wasn't crying- I mean, hello, Queen Elsa!"

"Hello, Fritz."

The two of them stared at each other in silence.

Elsa looked over Fritz's shoulder. "What's that?"

Fritz blanched, then slowly turned around. Oh no. He'd left Idina on top of the covers!

"Nothing!" said Fritz. "It's just a... thing." He dashed across the room and crammed the stuffed bear beneath the quilt at lightning speed. "Don't worry about it. In fact, don't even think about it again. Ever."

"Was..." It was hard to say if Elsa looked amused or unsettled. "Was that bear supposed to look like-?"

"What bear?" said Fritz, darting his head around. "I don't see any bears around here!"

Amused won out. "Alright, whatever you say. Any other effigies of me I ought to know about?"

"It's not my fault!" squeaked Fritz. "They were selling them at the store! You wouldn't _believe_ how much merchandise you've inspired."

"Isn't it meant for little girls, though?"

"I- I had some money left over after buying all that beer and exercise equipment and- and sports!"

Elsa smirked at him. "Whatever you say, Fritz."

Fritz's face was solid red. "So, uh, why'd you come in here, anyways?"

"I wanted to introduce you to Daniel."

"Who?"

"You'll see." Elsa took his hand. "You're not going to believe this..."

Now that Fritz had confessed his feelings and been turned down, he was done obsessing over Elsa for good. No point fixating over something that was never going to happen, right? Fritz was amazed with himself as Elsa led him down the bedchambers hall. He didn't feel infatuated with her at all! He wasn't even fawning over her gorgeous blue eyes or the dainty little waddle of her snowflake-studded braid or her smooth, creamy skin or her perfectly manicured fingernails or the hypnotic way her hips bounced as she walked or the way her ice-dress hugged her body so tightly or-

"Daniel is... well, you'll see when we get there," said Elsa. "But before you meet him, keep in mind that Daniel's had a... troubled past. He's in need of friends, so I'm hoping you hit it off."

"Huh- Wha- Yes, I was listening!" said Fritz. "Be nice to Daniel. Got it." That wouldn't be too hard. Fritz was, by nature, an extremely kindhearted-

The door swung open, and so did Fritz's mouth. There was a boy lying in bed. A gorgeous, pretty boy with sparkly eyes and pale skin, puffs of frost dancing on his fingertips. He shot Elsa a lustful, seductive gaze as she entered the room.

"Daniel, this is Fritz," Elsa told him, matching the pretty boy's gaze with a look of longing and desire.

It was taking everything Fritz had to stop his fists from quaking. "W-Who is this guy?"

"He has ice-magic just like mine." Elsa gave Fritz a cheerful pat on the shoulder. "Isn't that great?"

"Yes." Fritz's eyes were fixed on Daniel's messy-but-not-in-an-unattractive-way hair. "I'm so happy for you."

"Oh, and Daniel?" Elsa sat herself at the foot of his bed. "I'm sorry about before. It wasn't right of me to grab you like that."

_What the heck?_ screamed Fritz's brain. _What the actual heck?_

"I understand," said Daniel. "You were just carried away."

Oh, _ohhhhh_, _now_ Fritz understood. When Elsa had said "I'm just not interested in having a relationship with anybody," what she'd really meant was, "I'm just not interested in having a relationship with you, specifically, Fritz Herman Gudmund, because you suck at everything."

"I only want what's best for you, Daniel. I need you to trust me, alright?"

"Alright."

Elsa leaned in to give him a hug. A _tight_ hug! She never hugged _Fritz_ that tightly. And the little snot hugged back, too! He even snuggled his head up against Elsa's neck, locking the two of them together like puzzle pieces. Also, Fritz called him a little snot, but truthfully, Fritz was still only seventeen, whereas Daniel looked right around the exact same age as Elsa.

After an agonizing few seconds, the hug ended, and Elsa made for the door. "I have something to take care of, but Fritz can keep you company. I have a feeling you two will good friends." The door closed behind her.

Now Fritz was left alone with Daniel. Fritz cleared his throat and fidgeted with his cuff links. He thought about making light conversation, but it didn't happen.

_Gee, it's a good thing you're completely over Queen Elsa, or else you might feel jealous or something_, said the self-loathing center of Fritz's brain.

_Shut up!_ he told it. _I'm obviously just seeing things that aren't there! It's Samson all over again. Elsa would never really-_

"Here you go, Daniel!" Elsa scurried back into the bedroom, hauling a large comforter. "Your blanket looked completely frozen over, and the maid was busy, so I brought you a new one."

"Thank you." Daniel flashed her a charming smile and moved the old sheet off to allow her to spread the new one over himself. "I'm touched."

"Oh, it's nothing." Elsa made a nervous laugh and fiddled with her braid. "Are you comfortable now? Is your pillow fine? What about those pajamas we gave you? Do they fit?"

"Everything's fine, Elsa."

"Alright. Let me know if you need anything else. I'm glad to help!" Elsa scurried back out the door.

_At this point, I think you have better chances with Charlotte_, said Fritz's brain.

_Come on, she's just happy to meet another person with ice-powers!_ Fritz told it. _It runs far deeper than some shallow "romance." She's been isolated all her life, so of course she'd going to be eager to have a companion who understands her. That doesn't necessarily mean either of them like each othe__r-_

"Have you ever seen someone so in love?" said Daniel.

Fritz nearly choked to death on nothing but air. "Elsa treats everybody like that! She's just a nice, considerate woman."

"Do you believe in destiny, Fritz?" Daniel conjured up what appeared to be an ice-rose and held it to his nose, sniffing it as if it smelled like anything but cold air. "Our sorcery connects us. It's a bond no one else in the world shares. She can't love anyone else the way she loves me."

Fritz's heart sank. Elsa hadn't told Fritz she _didn't_ love anyone romantically. What if... What if she _was_ capable of romance, and she just hadn't met her soul mate until now? Oh no. _Oh no._ That was _exactly_ what was going on. Elsa's life was a fairy tale, Daniel was her true love, and Fritz was just the stupid guy who hung around in the background providing comic relief! No wonder Elsa didn't love Fritz. He was on the same level of importance as _Ola__f!_

"And just between us guys, if there have to be only two cryomancers left in the world..." Daniel added smugly, "...I'm glad one of them looks like _that_."

"Yeah, she is, uh, kind of attractive, now that you mention it..."

"I saw how you looked at her," laughed Daniel. "It's understandable, but I feel pretty bad for you, actually. I mean, she's a head taller than you."

"Well, uh, we actually have a really close relationship." All the blood in Fritz's body was rushing into his cheeks. "And we're both mature enough to look past-"

"Who _couldn't_ see her that way?" Daniel let out a sigh. "I know I'd sure like to slip off her dress and-" Daniel proceeded to give Fritz a detailed account of _exactly_ what he'd like to do with Elsa.

Fritz had been raised by his momma, whose moral standards would've made the Puritans call her a prude. To Fritz's knowledge, there were only three ways to romance the person of your fancy: Hugs, kisses, and the mysterious, veiled thing that people often whispered of. He did, however, catch the general gist of what Daniel was saying.

"That's horrible!" snapped Fritz. "You make it sound like you're only pretending to like Elsa to get into her pants!"

Daniel scowled. "Well, aren't _you_ acting high-and-mighty? I'm not _pretending_ anything. I'm just not denying a major factor of my feelings towards her. How many people have you met who have romantic interest in someone but _don't_ want to screw them, exactly? Besides yourself, clearly."

"_What's that supposed to mean?_"

Of course, both boys were so distracted by the gallons of testosterone pumping through the air that they failed to notice the half-open dresser drawer with the snowy head and icy beak poking out of it.

* * *

"Your Majesty." The snowbird fluttered into the bedroom, calm as could be. "Fritz and Daniel engaged in an altercation. Now Fritz seems to be on the floor, screaming and crying."

The sisters sprang to their feet and dashed out the door.

"Okay, okay!" Elsa said as they ran down the hall. "I'm glad we invaded his privacy now!"

They burst into Daniel's room to find Fritz sprawled across the carpet and Daniel above the covers, leaned against the headboard.

"It was an accident!" Daniel immediately yelped, tears streaming down his face. "I told you I should wear gloves!"

"_Fritz!_" But Elsa ignored him, running to Fritz's side.

"I'm- I'm fine," said Fritz faintly. He sat up on the floor and hugged himself. "Just a little ch-ch-ch-chilly..."

Elsa's eyes widened. Forming in Fritz's brown hair were unmistakable patches of white.


	51. Muchas Smooches

It wasn't Fritz's fault! Daniel had provoked him! Fritz was usually a kind, gentle soul! And besides, Fritz's muscular strength wasn't exactly a great deal higher than the sickly, bedridden boy's, so it _would've_ been a fair fight if _somebody_ hadn't busted out their magical powers. And Fritz had only cried a little bit! Not because it hurt or anything, but just because... uh... because he was caught off guard.

And then the fairest creature ever to grace the world had burst into the room, cried out in horror, and made a bee-line for him. Fritz had made an effort to look like he hadn't just been totally emasculated, but it'd been undercut by a violent shiver rocking his entire body. Huh. That was weird. Had the room been this cold a minute ago?

"_What did you do?_" Elsa glared at Daniel, who was huddled at the far end of his bed, hugging his knees.

"I _told you_ it happens when I get upset!" said Daniel, voice shaking. "I _told you_ I would accidentally kill someone!"

"_Kill__?_" Fritz's voice went up a couple notes. "Did he say kill I thought I heard him say kill-"

"Don't panic!" said Elsa, grabbing Fritz's shoulders. "We've fixed this before – We can do it again. Where did his magic hit you?"

"I don't know! I don't know!" Fritz's eyes had gone the size of dinner plates. "Everything's cold! What's happening to me? _Oh God, am I freezing to death__?_"

"You're going to be fine, Fritz, but you need to tell me where you were struck. Was it in the head or-?"

"_I don't wanna die! I don't wanna-_"

"_Fritz_," said Elsa impatiently, "Did he freeze your head or your heart?"

"I don't know! How can you tell?"

"Does it get a little bit colder every time your heart beats?" asked Anna.

Fritz blinked, then shut his eyes and tried to focus. Now that she mentioned it, it _did_ kind of feel like the temperature was dropping at a steady rhythm. "I- I think so..."

"Then it's your heart," said Anna. "Trust me. Besides, I'm pretty sure if you were hit in the head, you'd be knocked out."

"What's the difference?" asked Fritz.

"Well, if your head was frozen, I guess we'd have to erase all your memories of Daniel's magic."

"_What__?_ How's that supposed to stop me from freezing to death?"

"I don't know! It's just the rules!"

"We'll figure this out." Elsa helped Fritz to his feet. "But first things first, we need to get you someplace warmer." Actually, putting her chilly hands on him didn't exactly help, but the idea of any aspect of Elsa being bad was so foreign to Fritz that it didn't even cross his mind.

"Wait, don't go!" Daniel made an effort to climb off of his mattress. "Maybe I can help! If I could just-"

"We can handle this. Just try to calm down and control your powers." Elsa gave him a sympathetic look, then led Fritz out the room.

* * *

Elsa and Anna supported the poor kid's weight, helping him walk down the bedchambers hallway. His hair was getting whiter, but it hadn't yet formed a defined streak like Anna's.

"What are we going to do?" asked Elsa. "Bring him to the trolls?"

"Why?" asked Anna. "We already know how to thaw a frozen heart."

"We do?" gulped Fritz. "Does it hurt?"

"Nope. You just need to do an act of true love, and it'll be all better!"

"R-Really?" Fritz's face fell. "Are you sure there's not, like, a spell you can cast, or a maybe some kind of potion to-?"

"Don't worry." Anna gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "There's nothing to be afraid of."

"Well, what was _your_ act of true love?"

"I jumped in the way of a sword."

Fritz subconsciously brought a hand to his neck.

"We'll think of something else for you." Elsa turned to her sister. "How long do we have?"

"Well..." Anna looked thoughtful. "When it happened to me, we had time to go from the North Mountain to the trolls to the castle on Sven, and since Daniel's magic is weaker than yours, it doesn't look like Fritz is freezing as fast, so... probably a while. Maybe even a day or two."

"Good. That gives us plenty of time to figure something out."

* * *

A half hour later, Fritz was tucked into his bed under about a hundred thousand of the palace's thickest quilts. There were also a couple candles, a crackling fireplace, and, thankfully, no sociopaths dousing anything with water. Unfortunately, no matter how much steaming soup, tea, and cocoa the maids shoved into his mouth, Fritz never seemed to shiver any less.

Presently, the sisters were alone with him, brainstorming as many adequately loving acts as they could.

"You poor little boy!" Elsa made a show of giving Fritz a big, squishy hug and then ruffling his hair. "Life's been hard for you, hasn't it?" she asked in the tone of voice normally used with house pets. Fritz nodded feebly. After a minute, Elsa asked, "How about now?"

Fritz shivered for the umpteenth time. "Nope. Nothing."

"Dang it!" Anna leaned forward in her bedside chair and crossed out another line of parchment. "How is hugging not an act of true love? Who wrote these stupid magic rules, anyways?"

"We'll have to keep thinking." Elsa ended the hug so she could resume pacing around the bedroom.

"You know, there's a really obvious one you haven't tried yet." Anna held the parchment in Elsa's face. Below the crossed-out words "poetry," "musical number," and "hugging" was what appeared to be a crude illustration of a stick figure with its face pressed against the face of another stick figure. The second figure was wearing a dress and a French braid, and both of them surrounded by hearts and flowers.

Elsa groaned. "When are you going to let that drop?"

"He's freezing to death! Can't you at least _try__?_"

"It won't work," said Elsa, returning to Fritz's side. "It's supposed to be an act of _true_ love – It can't be something I'm forced to do."

"But how will you know if you never try?" asked Anna. "I mean, who knows, maybe you're wrong, and you really _do_ have true love? Heck, this could be your chance to have it confirmed by the inner workings of the _universe itself_ that your love is true!"

"Maybe I can just talk with Fritz? If we have a real heart-to-heart, maybe-?"

"It's an _act_ of true love." Anna rolled her eyes. "You've got to _do_ something."

"Um, excuse me?" spoke up Fritz. "I... can't feel my toes."

"Ooh, yeah, they're the first to go." Anna gave a sympathetic wince. "Sounds like we'd better do _whatever we can_ to end your misery _as soon as possible_." She shot Elsa a pointed look.

Elsa folded her arms. "Look, we _know _it doesn't have to be romantic love. Familial love works, too." She turned to Fritz. "You said your mother lives in Arendelle, right?"

"M-My momma?" Fritz let out his biggest shiver yet. His heart must've been getting worse. "Uh, yeah, she does..."

"I'll bring her here." Elsa made for the door.

"I... I guess it's worth a shot..."

Weird. If Elsa didn't know any better, she'd say Fritz didn't look too confident in the idea... but Elsa was sure it would work. What kind of mother didn't love their own son?

* * *

"He's dying? Great! How soon?"

"E-Excuse me?"

Elsa's mouth would've hung open, but she wanted to inhale as little of the stench as possible. Being queen, this was literally the most filth Elsa had ever been exposed to in her entire life, and that was counting the wight's guts. There was meat _everywhere_. On the ceiling. On the walls. On the floor. _Especially_ on the floor. Elsa fought back the urge to retch. At a glance, this place looked like the den of some horrible carnivore – Actually, no, at least the wight had picked his bones clean – but what it actually was was a charming nineteenth-century butcher shop.

A gray-haired, lumpy-headed, beady-eyed woman was at the counter. She was apparently too engaged chopping up what appeared to be the insides of a reindeer to look up at her queen's arrival.

"You- You can't really mean that!" Elsa stammered out. "He's your son! Don't you even care that-?" She was cut off by the sound of Mrs. Gudmund resuming her chopping. That did it.

There was a _sploosh, sploosh, sploosh_ of a knife hitting meat, and then a _plink_ of a knife hitting ice.

"What do you think you're doing?" _That_ caught the old hag's attention. "You ruined my meat!"

"_Your son is dying_," Elsa repeated tightly. "His heart was-"

"-frozen. Yeah, yeah, I heard you the first time." Mrs. Gudmund's eyes narrowed. "Well, maybe since Arendelle was stupid enough to let a witch on the throne, we _deserve_ to have a couple people freeze to death."

Elsa's fists clenched all on their own. "You don't love him at all." It wasn't a question.

"What's there to love?" Mrs. Gudmund snorted. "Fritz is a scrawny little spineless loser who cries too much and can't even lift a ten-pound sack of reindeer meat. His father kept trying to smack some sense into him, but it never worked."

"Smack some sense into him?" Elsa repeated, voice quivering. "You're saying he struck Fritz?"

"Yeah! All the time!" Mrs. Gudmund grabbed a hunk of unfrozen meat hanging on a hook and yelled, "It was like a daily routine! Whenever the little idiot screwed up, Herko would shove him to the floor and scream, 'You worthless little loser! Can't you do _anything_ without screwing up?'" She illustrated her point by repeatedly smashing her fists against the hide as hard as she could.

Elsa stared. "All the time?" she repeated faintly.

"Fritz never _did_ man up," said Mrs. Gudmund, not even facing Elsa's general direction. "He's gonna stay a worthless little loser until the day he dies – which shouldn't be much longer now. Stupid Herko said it was _my_ fault – said I bear sickly children – but _he_ was the one who dropped the little snot in the middle of the reindeer stampede when he was two. A hoof probably hit his head the wrong way, I dunno."

She let out a snort.. "Bah! Let him leave! Good riddance! I was sick of all that screaming anyways! And even without his deadbeat father around, Fritz was _still_ an idiot. Ugh, you should have seen him trying to pursue _higher learning_ of all things after those reindeer-" Elsa winced at the usage of a syllable she'd never heard before but was certain evoked something unspeakable. "-ers kicked us out. Fritz'd come home every night crying, 'I can't do it! I can't do it! I'm just gonna screw up again! Waaaaaaah!' The giant _baby_."

She shot Elsa a sneer. "I bet he's come crying to you about what a loser he is, hasn't he? He can't shut up about it." But as quickly as she'd acknowledged Elsa presence, Mrs. Gudmund moved her gaze back to the far wall and resumed talking to herself. "Fritz had _better_ have kept my portrait. I don't want him trying to fool around with any _women_, not that he'd ever have the chance without using part of his salary... Lord knows we don't need any more _sinful men_ running around. They're... They're _animals_. Tell you they love you and then treat you like dirt."

Her snideness wavered for only a second. "He's just like his father. They _all_ are." She let out her loudest snort yet. "Of course, _some_ women are asking for it, tramping around showing off their legs for attention." She shot Elsa an incredibly unsubtle glare.

"You are the most repulsive woman I've ever had the misfortune to meet, and you are hereby charged with insulting the monarchy, unsanitary working conditions, and child abuse," said Elsa. Every last bit of meat wallpapering the shop was accumulating frost at an alarming rate.

Mrs. Gudmund didn't take the hint. "Well, you're hardly one to talk! Maybe if _your_ worthless parents had given _you_ a good smacking, you wouldn't have turned out to be a gay witch freak!"

* * *

Despite the sweltering heat, it took five weeks for the butcher shop to thaw.

* * *

"You're back!" Anna looked up at Elsa's arrival. She'd been sitting at Fritz's bedside, trying to see if making him a friendship bracelet counted as an act of true love. "What took you so long?"

After a moment's hesitation, Elsa said, "His mother wasn't home. I couldn't find her." She sounded awfully sullen.

Anna frowned. "Well, maybe she'll come back. Fritz's still got a bunch of brown hair left, so we've got time."

"Maybe." Elsa took a tentative step forward. "Hey, Anna?"

"Yeah?"

Elsa walked to Anna's chair to whisper in her ear: "_Go fetch one of the guards from outside the gates. The ones that carry swords. We can stage some kind of attack, have him swing his sword at me, and let Fritz jump in the way._"

Anna's face lit up. "_That sounds awesome!_" she whispered back. "_But you really think Fritz is dumb enough to fall for- Oh, what am I saying? Be right back._" Anna hurried out the door.

Now it was just Fritz and Elsa. She turned to him and took yet another deep breath.

"What was that?" asked Fritz.

"Nothing." Elsa's voice sounded oddly nervous. "I sent her on an errand."

"Um... okay?"

"How are you feeling?" Elsa slowly stepped towards the bed.

"Cold," said Fritz, pulling the covers tighter over himself. "Starting to l-l-lose feeling in my fingertips..."

"I'm sorry. You know, I hate seeing you in pain, Fritz." Elsa met his gaze. "I'd do anything if I thought it had a chance of helping you."

"But why'd you send Anna away?" asked Fritz.

Elsa halted at Fritz's bedside, then knelt down until her head was directly across from his own. "I just invented some task to keep her gone long enough."

Fritz looked blank. "Long enough for what?"

Elsa let out an anxious laugh. "Close your eyes."

* * *

"You want me to _swing my sword_ at the queen?" The guard at the right of the gates was giving Anna an incredulous stare.

"You won't actually hurt her!" said Anna. "Fritz will jump in the way at the last second and throw his hand out dramatically, and then he'll turn to solid ice, and the blade will hit his hand and shatter into a million pieces, and then there'll be a huge shockwave-"

"Wait, the blade will shatter?" spoke up the guard on the left. "I'm pretty sure a sword would be stronger than ice."

"Not if it's _magic_ ice!" scoffed Anna. "Don't you know _anything__?_"

* * *

"Okay." Elsa steadied herself. "I'm ready. Don't tell anybody about this. It'll be out secret."

"Uh buh gah whaaaaaaa?" said Fritz.

She pursed her lips, then slowly, teasingly leaned in closer... and closer... and closer...

Fritz heart was going faster than light.

Closer...

This had to be a dream... _Had_ to be...

Closer... closer...

It couldn't be... after all this time... _actually happening?_

So close he could smell her minty breath...

She paused with their lips inches apart. "Oh, Fritz." Elsa's face broke into a diabolical grin. "If only there was someone out there who loved you."

"_What__?_"

And then came the maniacal laughter.

"Gah!" Fritz opened his eyes to find his head still resting on the pillow. He was pretty disoriented, but a few things quickly became clear. One was that Elsa was standing over his bed, giving him a sad smile and decidedly _not_ cackling like an evil mastermind. The other was that Fritz's fingers and toes were no less numb than before.

"Huh? Whah?" Fritz was only capable of a few garbled syllables.

"You passed out again," said Elsa softly. "Your heart's still frozen. I'm... I'm sorry... I should never have..."

"Whuhs go-uhn on?" asked Fritz. "Whah ah mah wips numb?"

"I'm sorry, Fritz." Elsa put her hand over his own. "It felt like I was kissing a little kid. It was too weird." She gave him a strained smile. "No offense."

Even though Fritz was lying in bed, it felt like he was falling down a long flight of stairs. The... the inner workings of the universe had just rejected their love, hadn't it? That _proved_ it was... hopeless...

"Well, at least now you've..." Elsa laughed uneasily. Her face was completely flushed. "...had your first kiss with the girl you've always wanted."

There was a pause.

"Yes," said Fritz. "First one ever. It was... really good!"

Elsa sighed and bowed her head. "You don't have to lie to me. I know I'm... too cold."

"You're not too cold!" yelped Fritz.

"Your lips are still blue," said Elsa flatly.

"Uh, only because of my frozen heart! Honest!"

"That's what you, Samson, and everyone else interested in me have never understood." Elsa glanced at one of the half-drunk cups of hot chocolate resting on Fritz's bedside. "Even with my powers under control... even now that I can feel heat... I'm always going to be cold. People find..." She turned away, her cheeks even redder than before. "...bathing in warm water more... _pleasant_... than... cold..."

"I take cold baths all the time!" Fritz blurted out.

"I guess it's just who I am," said Elsa, seating herself on his bedside. "When I took off my gloves, I accepted my powers, but... my power is _the_ _cold_. And... I guess that means... I'm always going to... to hurt people..."

"Elsa?" Fritz threw off his covers. It made him even colder, but he didn't care. "Elsa, what's wrong?"

"I- I lied before, Fritz. I _did _talk to your mother."

His heart hit the brakes. "You _did__?_"

"You told me she was a nice woman!"

"Oh, sorry, I, uh, might have forgotten to tell you... she's a little bit senile," said Fritz. "So, uh, how is she?"

"She's in prison."

"Not again!"

"You also never told me she disowned you," said Elsa. "And, Fritz, you... you never told me just... to what extent your father..."

Fritz's head was feeling a bit lighter than usual. "I, uh... I didn't think it was... Elsa, I... I told you, it's not the same as what you went through! I deserv-" He was cut off by the absolute tightest hug he'd ever received.

"I'm sorry, Fritz... I'm so sorry..."

Without even thinking about what he was doing, Fritz sprang out of the covers to put his arms around her. "No, no, no, it's not your fault!"

"Yes it is." Elsa brought a hand to her eyes. "I made Daniel take off his gloves. It's my fault your heart's frozen. Daniel was right... Why shouldn't we wear gloves? Our powers only _look_ beautiful, but what they're really _for_ is _death__... __like the wight said..."_

Okay, now Fritz was scared. He'd known Elsa had some major problems in her life, but he'd never seen her completely lose it before.

"I- I want to love you, Fritz. I really do, but I... I can't." She dug her face into his shoulder. "I think... all those years alone have- have _messed me up_, and I'm _supposed_ to feel something for you, but I just _don't___.__"

"You're not messed up, Elsa." Fritz's heart was thumping faster. "You... You can't make yourself love someone out of pity. I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be 'true' love."

"I can't lose you. It- It can't happen again." She squeezed his hand. "What if... What if we got married?"

_Married?_ gasped the part of Fritz's brain on constant alert for this specific possibility. _Did she say married? Will she marry us? Let's get married!_

"But... you don't want to do that, right?" said Fritz.

"I do if it'll thaw your heart." Elsa gave a feeble smile. "Even if a kiss didn't work... marriage is more than that. It's a commitment. Sanctity of marriage and all that. It could count as an act of true love. Don't you...?" She shut her eyes. "Don't you think it's worth trying?"

_Does that mean marriage?_ shrieked Fritz's brain. _Let's do the marriage option! One marriage, coming right up! Marry away!_

"I- I- I don't know," Fritz stammered. "I mean, I guess it could. So..." His cheeks were red, and not just because he was cold. "...you're asking to marry me?"

Elsa laughed. "Yeah, I guess that's backwards, but-" Even as she spoke, another patch of Fritz's hair whitened. "-but we're a little short on time. This isn't exactly a normal situation in the first place, so... I guess I'm asking you." She took his hand in hers. "Will you marry me?"

There was silence. Fritz stared at her, his pulse pounding in his ears, the whiteness crawling over more and more of his hair, his toes growing numb...

"No," said Fritz. "You wouldn't be happy."

There was a noise like a balloon popping, and suddenly Fritz hair's was back to being solid brown. Fritz and Elsa looked around, dazed. They were waiting for a big shockwave or something of that nature. Nothing came.

"Was that it?" Fritz wiggled his fingers and toes just to make sure they all still worked right.

"Well... Daniel's magic was weaker," shrugged Elsa.

"Yeah, but... I was expecting something, I don't know, a little more dramatic-"

"_Fritz, Elsa, look out! The rebels are back!_" Anna burst into the room, screaming her head off. "_Fritz, you're gonna have to protect Elsa with your life!_"

"_Where? Where?_" Fritz shrieked and immediately hid behind Elsa.

"Grr! We're here to rebel and stuff!" A moment later, Henrik and Morten entered the scene, flailing their swords about wildly.

Elsa chuckled. "Thanks for the effort, but Fritz's heart is thawed now."

"Aww, man!" The guards slinked off down the hall, shooting Anna a dirty look.

Anna blinked, then looked from Elsa to Fritz and back. A big, knowing smirk crossed her face. "Next time you need some privacy, you can just ask."

Elsa rolled her eyes. "I know what you're thinking, and it didn't happen that way."

"_Of course_, Elsa, _of course_," said Anna coyly, examining her own fingernails. "Funny how Fritz's lips stayed blue even when the rest of him thawed, but I'm _sure_ that's nothing."

Fritz yelped and brought a hand to his mouth.

"It's not what it looks like!" said Elsa. "Fritz's act of true love was actually much more complicated than that. See, he sacrificed his own happiness for the sake of mine, and since love is putting someone else's needs before-"

"Oh, Elsa, there's nothing to ashamed of!" Anna gave her a reassuring pat on the arm. "I'm sure nobody thinks any less of you now that you've _made out with __Fritz__._"

"_Anna__!_"

"No, I'm over her now!" squeaked Fritz. "Really!"

"Oh, Fritz, I'm sorry, we should've told you." Anna was having trouble breathing from laughing so hard. "_Elsaitis_ is an incurable disease! You've got it for life!"

"I've had just about enough of this." Elsa stormed out of the room, leaving a trail of cold air in her wake.

"It's spread through _lip contact__!_" Anna yelled after her.

* * *

When she'd walked in his room, Elsa had had every intention of scolding Daniel, but... when she laid eyes on him, it all faded away. Daniel _still _had tears in his eyes. The poor thing was sitting under his covers, trembling.

"Is he okay?" Daniel immediately asked.

Elsa nodded. "Fritz is fine. But Daniel, you have to be _careful._"

Daniel bowed his head. "I... I let my emotions get the better of me. I didn't mean to hurt him. I..." His voice shook. "Elsa, all my powers ever _do_ is hurt people."

Elsa seated herself at the foot of his bed and placed her hand over his. "I know. I've been there. But Daniel, lashing out will only make it worse. Listen, the things you said to Fritz about me were..." _Vulgar? Disgusting? Sickening? _"...inappropriate. You made Fritz uncomfortable, and... you made me uncomfortable, too."

Daniel turned towards the dresser drawer. "So you know about that?"

"Fritz told me."

"Well, I'd planned on telling you how I felt in a less... _blunt_ way."

"Then why did you say what you said to Fritz?"

"I was only teasing him." Daniel failed to meet her eyes. "But I really do think you're beautiful."

It was at this comment that Elsa stood up from the bed and backed away. "I get that a _lot_, Daniel. It's a little tiresome, really."

"I'm sorry." Daniel closed his eyes. "I just... had a girl I was close to once, and... I ended up hurting her. But... you're like me. I could never hurt _you_."

Elsa let out a weary sigh, then held out her hands. "Here." And in those hands was a pair of new, white gloves. "It wasn't my place to force them off of you. It's my fault Fritz was hurt."

Daniel leaned forward, apparently exerting a great effort just to sit up straight, and accepted the gift.

"But nobody's making you wear these!" Elsa quickly added. "You have a choice. So, even if you're scared of hurting people, I... hope someday you can learn to..." Her voice trailed off as she watched Daniel slip the gloves back over his fingers. She made no effort to disguise her disappointment. "I'll leave you to keep resting."

Just before she turned away, Daniel caught her eye and said, "Elsa... thank you." He brought a gloved hand to his face, the tears looking like they might resume any second now. Elsa made no reply. She simply walked back out the door in silence.

Had she done a sudden one-eighty-degree spin, Elsa might have caught the smug little smirk on Daniel's face.


	52. Make Up Your Mind

"Sooooo... was your first kissy with Fritzy everything you'd hoped it'd be?" Anna was, of course, waiting in Elsa's bedroom doorway so she could resume her torrent of teasing. "If that indeed _was_ your first- Elsa?" But Anna gave a start when Elsa pushed past her into the room. "What's wrong? Fritz just proved his true love for you! You should be happy! I don't have to tease you about it if you're too embarrassed-"

"I gave Daniel more gloves," Elsa said faintly. "It's like I'm admitting it to myself... admitting that he needs them..."

"Let him wear them if he wants," snorted Anna. "Daniel's nothing but a skeevy, bratty pervert."

"Daniel's spent his life in isolation," said Elsa tightly. "There are perfectly good reasons for his behavior."

"He froze Fritz's heart!"

"_I_ froze _your_ heart, and you don't hold it against _me_."

"You're doing the _thing_ again!" Anna rolled her eyes. "How long are we keeping him around, anyways?"

Elsa's brow creased. "Daniel's staying here permanently, of course."

Anna nearly did a pratfall. "No! _No! __Eww! _If Daniel's living here forever, then I'm moving!"

"Anna, you're being ridiculous!" said Elsa, raising her voice. "I know he's rough around the edges, but-"

"_Rough around the edges?_" Mount Anna was on the brink of eruption. "He's a total creep, and he's brainwashing you worse than Mary did! We outta throw him out on the streets!"

"We're not throwing anyone out on the streets. Look, I have another council meeting tomorrow. I need to get to bed. Good night." Elsa gave Anna a hug, then climbed under the covers.

"Night." Anna slowly made her way back into the hall.

She glanced at a random nook of the hallway. The place where Anna had snuggled up against Hans as she declared him the best thing to ever happen to her.

Anna was getting that blank look about her face. The one that meant she was scheming.

* * *

Even though nearly freezing to death had left Fritz exhausted, he was having trouble falling asleep. The truth was, without a gigantic crush on Elsa, there was a big void in Fritz's thoughts. What'd he fantasized about _before_ Elsa had come hip-swinging into his life? There _had_ been a time when he'd been attracted to... _ordinary_ women, right? Right?

It was strange. Ever since his act of true love, the thought of being romantically tangled with Elsa couldn't seem to grip Fritz's mind the way it used to. In the old days, just the knowledge that their lips had touched would have been enough to send Fritz into an epileptic seizure – even if Fritz had fainted and could hardly remember any of it, except maybe the vague taste of mint ice cream. But now he just felt... neutral. Honestly, Fritz hadn't actually thought he'd _ever_ get the emotional maturity to reach this point. In fact, he found it much more likely that the inner workings of the universe had magically sucked Fritz's crush right out of him the moment his heart thawed.

Fritz shut his eyes and tried to dream about a fantasy woman who was breathtakingly pretty, only she didn't wear her hair in a braid, she didn't have magical powers, and her hips were only of average size _and that was a paradox! _How could anybody possibly be pretty without those things? Clearly, if Fritz couldn't have a crush on Elsa, then he couldn't have a crush on any woman at all. That left him only one choice: chastity. Well, actually, Fritz already practiced that. Just not by choice.

"Fritz?" It was at this point that the door swung open, and a hyperactive princess wandered into the room.

"Oh _no_, not _you__!_" groaned Fritz. "Haven't you teased me enough? I told you, I'm completely over Elsa now!"

"Hmm, really?" Anna's eyes wandered towards Fritz's shelf. "Let's see what your _bear_ has to say about that!"

"Hey! Put her back!"

"Not until you admit it," said Anna in a singsong voice. "Say Elsa's your true love and looking at her gives you butterflies in your tummy!"

"No! I'm over her! Honest!" Fritz tried to snatch Idina out of Anna's hands, but she held the bear above her head, making it quite impossible for Fritz to reach, even when he jumped. "I thawed my heart by putting what she wanted above what I wanted!"

"Oh yeah? How do you know it wasn't really the kiss that thawed your heart, and it just took it a minute to kick in?"

Fritz froze. That couldn't be right... could it?

"Alright, you want your idol of your sweetie-pie back?" Anna could barely restrain her wicked glee. "Tell me all the juicy details."

Fritz gulped. "Details about what?"

"_You know what_." Anna made a kissy face. "How was it?"

If you'd touched Fritz cheeks right then, it would've burned your hand. After a minute, he mumbled, "...Cold."

Anna burst out laughing. "Aww, you two are adorable. Here, you've earned this!" She tossed him the bear. Fritz fumbled only a little bit before catching Idina and returning her to her proper place on the shelf.

"So did you just come in here to torment me?" grumbled Fritz.

"Well, not _just_ to torment you," said Anna. "I wanted to welcome you to the frozen hearts club. Trust me, you had a lot more fun with yours than I did. And, uh..." She glanced around, then said, conspiratorially, "I wanted to ask you about Daniel."

"What about him?"

"Fritz, when he froze your heart, did it... _really_ seem like an accident? Did Daniel start crying before or after Elsa came in?"

"I... I don't know," said Fritz. "I was a little too busy cry- err, toughing out the pain to pay attention to him. All I remember is getting really mad at Daniel, and I, uh, might have been standing a little too close to his bed, and I might have forgotten he had magic, and then, next thing I knew, I was on the floor."

"You're no help," huffed Anna. She turned for the door. "Well, thanks anyways."

"Why are you asking?"

"Because I think Daniel did it on purpose, and maybe if I show Elsa some proof, she'll stop fawning over him like a lovestruck preteen."

Fritz's eyes widened. "You really think he'd try to _kill_ _me?_ Who _is_ this guy?"

"That's what I'd like to know." And with that, Anna left.

Once Anna was a safe distance down the hallway, Fritz ran over to his shelf and stroked Idina's braid. "There, there... I won't let the mean woman hurt you anymore..."

...What? You think just because Fritz still had a stuffed animal version of her, he wasn't completely over Elsa? Idina was merely a bear _completely unrelated _to Elsa whohappened to share her fashion sense!

* * *

Olaf had _better_ have appreciated his new nose. Not only had it been insanely expensive, but Sven had been so carrot-starved that Kristoff had spent the entire return trip trying to stop him from devouring Olaf whole. It hadn't been fun, is what he was saying, and now Kristoff was more than ready to leave the craziness of snowmen and reindeer-

"Hello?" Kristoff found Anna in the middle of the bedchambers hallway, lifting up the visors so she could stick her head in as many ice-covered suits of armor as possible. "Hello?"

-and return to the craziness of his girlfriend.

"Looking for someone?" asked Kristoff.

"Oh!" Anna yanked her head out, narrowly avoiding getting it stuck, and spun towards him. "Kristoff! Perfect!"

"What are you-?"

The words weren't even out of his mouth before Anna locked lips with him. Kristoff was shocked. Not complaining. Just shocked.

After a minute, Anna unstuck her face and glanced aside. Right on cue, there was now a snowbird perched on the snowy carpet, giving them a judgmental stare.

"Aha! Found you!" Anna pounced. The bird tried to escape, but she wrestled it into submission.

"I'm not even gonna ask," said Kristoff.

"While you were gone Daniel froze Fritz's heart but he's fine because Elsa's kissed him but I think Daniel did it on purpose because he's a jerk and the snowbird saw everything so I'm asking it!"

"Ah. Of course."

After a while, the snowbird ceased its squirming. "Did Daniel attack Fritz on purpose?" asked Anna.

"It's difficult to say, Your Highness," it said. "He grew angry, and a stream of frost shot from his hand. It's just as likely to be an accident as an intentional attack."

"Did he start crying before or after Elsa came in?"

"After. But Elsa entered the room almost immediately."

Anna groaned. "You're no help, either!"

"Why would Daniel hurt Fritz on purpose?" asked Kristoff. "I was under the impression he was pretty against about hurting people with his powers, just like Elsa."

"I don't know... but I don't trust him. And maybe I wouldn't be freaking out so much about it if Elsa wasn't so obsessed with him."

"Alright, well, it can't hurt to be on your guard, but try not to pester Daniel, okay? Sounds like the poor kid's been through a lot."

"Of course I won't pester Daniel," said Anna. "That'd be rude and immature of me."

* * *

The door burst open. "Alright, Daniel! The jig is up! Why don't you just admit it?"

Daniel sat up in bed, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. "To what do I owe this pleasure?" he asked dryly.

"You may have Elsa fooled, but I know what you really are!" Anna pointed an accusing finger at him.

Daniel raised an eyebrow.

"A brat! Maybe you do have some tragic backstory, but you just use that an excuse to get away with acting like a jerk!" Anna's eyes fell on his hands. "Oh, look, you've got those gloves you wanted back. How convenient."

"I _hurt someone_," said Daniel.

"Yeah, funny how that worked out, isn't it?" said Anna. "You got all upset when Elsa took your gloves away, and then you picked a fight with Fritz where you _accidentally_ did exactly what you said you'd do, and now Elsa's back to fawning over you, and she gives you your gloves back."

"So you're saying I hurt someone so I could get my gloves back so I could stop hurting people?"

Anna folded her arms. "You _knew_ Fritz wouldn't _really _be hurt. Heck, the reason you attacked Fritz in the first place is because you were _jealous_ of him! You _knew_ Elsa loves him and not you! You _knew_ she would unfreeze his heart!"

"Jealous?" It was taking everything Anna had not to punch that smirk right off Daniel's face. "If my only competition for Elsa's affection is a scrawny prepubescent, I'm not exactly worried."

"I _double_ misjudged you! I misjudged if I'd misjudged you! I was right in the first place!"

"You know, your sister told me you were paranoid about men lying to you, but I didn't think it meant you were _delusional_-"

"Why don't you tell me who you _really_ are?" yelled Anna. "We both know you're not an eighteen-year-old kid! You were in my dream! You were a grown-up when I was six! I _remember_ you! I've... I've..." She grasped for words. "I've _met you_ before!"

Daniel was unmoved by the revelation. "You're not too in touch with reality, are you?"

Anna scowled at him. "You may have gotten away with hurting Fritz, but if you ever lay _one finger _on _Elsa_, I'll make you sorry_._"

"I can barely walk, let alone 'lay fingers' on people," said Daniel. "Besides, Queen Elsa's the most powerful sorceress on the planet. If anything, _she_ ought to be worried about me hurting _you_."

Anna's eyes widened. She stepped backwards towards the door. "Is that a threat?"

"No. I'm just trying to make you see reason."

"I'm telling Elsa!"

"Go ahead. I'll tell her myself if you want."

Anna was on the verge of tearing out her own hair. "_What's your deal?_ Why'd you come here?"

"I told you," said Daniel coolly. "I want what you have."

"What's that even supposed to mean?"

"Can I ask you a question, Your Highness?" For once, Daniel's smirk vanished. "Why did you jump in the way of that sword?"

"What kind of question is that?" Anna looked both confused and a little disgusted. "Because I love Elsa."

"Why? Up until that point, what'd she ever done but shut you out and freeze your heart?"

"You just don't get it." And with that, Anna left.

There was nothing more to say. Anna had heard more than enough to make up her mind about him.

* * *

Elsa was on the hill beneath the oak tree again, cradling a stiff little girl in her arms. Inky smoke was gathering around her. Elsa tried to run, but... at her every footfall, the grass turned cold and black. And with each footstep, the wave of black spread farther... and farther...

Elsa's eyes shot open, and she nearly screamed. Not out of terror, but frustration. The nightmares were back _again?_ This was getting ridiculous.

Elsa found herself once again wandering through the halls. She didn't even know where she was going. Either to Anna's or Fritz's room, whichever one her feet took her to in her sleep-deprived-

"Queen Elsa?"

Daniel's. She was in Daniel's room.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you." Elsa immediately turned back. She must be _really_ sleep-deprived if she was visiting _him_ for comfort. "I was just checking on you."

"No, no, stay a while," said Daniel. "I've got something to show you."

Elsa sighed, failed to find an excuse, and reentered the bedroom. Daniel had one of the plainer guest rooms, but the ice-covered walls coupled with the aurora borealis outside the window made it look oddly entrancing.

"What is it?" frowned Elsa.

"I know it upsets you," said Daniel, "but wearing my gloves has helped me. Since I'm not constantly making ice anymore, I've built up my strength. Look." He lifted back the covers and slowly rose to his feet.

A smile broke out over Elsa's face. "You can walk?"

"Probably not very far, but... yeah."

"Daniel, I'm happy for you, and I want you to get better, but..." And just like that, the smile was gone. "You have to believe me, the gloves won't help." She slowly moved towards him. "Daniel, when I first saw you, I thought you were a miracle. But... But I see now that you have issues you haven't dealt with. You haven't been as blessed as I've been, and when you hurt people with your powers, you let yourself be bitter. The way you treated Anna and Fritz is unacceptable."

Daniel bowed his head. "I'm sorry."

"That's a good start." Elsa took his hands. "But if you want to heal, you have to take _these_ off." She gently removed his gloves. "You'll never learn control if you hide how you feel. You have to know that you're safe, accepted, and loved. I know you've hurt people, and I'm sorry for whatever's happened between you and your brother, but... I need you to _try_."

Elsa dropped the gloves to the floor, then waved her hands. The ice decorating the beside table vanished, leaving nothing but plain wood.

Daniel walked over to it, limping, and then lowered his palm. It hovered above the table. "And who am I supposed to feel loved _by_?"

Elsa didn't meet his eyes. "If you really have no one else... you can be part of this family. _My _family."

Daniel nodded, then pressed his hand against the wood. They waited several minutes. Nothing happened.

"See?" Elsa's smile returned. "It's not so hard, is it?"

Daniel smiled back. "No one else in your family loves me, Elsa. In fact, I'm pretty sure Anna hates me. It's just _you_."

Elsa's face flushed. Daniel was looking at her hungrily, and suddenly Elsa remembered what he'd said to Fritz. She stepped backwards. "They'll warm up to you eventually."

"They don't understand," said Daniel. "They can't. They don't have our sorcery." He raised a hand and conjured an ice crystal. "I love what you've done to this castle. It's beautiful. I take it you enjoy creating with your ice?"

Elsa eased up. "Yes." She gave a hesitant smile. "More than anything."

"We made a promise, didn't we? You've shown me how to control my ice. Let me show you how to make it float." A gust of wind erupted from his fingertips and sent the crystal into the air. It wrapped around it, forming a little wind tunnel that kept the ice suspended in place. "We can't control _all_ air. Just winter winds. Y'know, cold ones with little snowflakes in them. Like what you'd find in a blizzard."

"Well, that doesn't seem too hard." Elsa conjured up her own ice-crystal and did likewise. "I'd just never thought of it before."

"That's the problem with having unlimited power," said Daniel. "You never have to get creative with it. I, on the other hand, have been forced to toy with what little ice I've got." The wind sent the crystal back into his hand. "Check this out."

Elsa watched in awe as Daniel's fingers phased through the crystal, moving through the ice as if it was liquid. "How did you do that?"

"Lots of practice," smirked Daniel. "You'll have to try that one later. It's not easy. Wanna see a harder one?"

Elsa forgot the disgusting things Daniel had said to Fritz, she forgot Anna's reservations about his moral character, and she forgot that it was the middle of the night. She'd been _un_-disillussioned. The next thing she knew, Daniel was back to being an angel from heaven, showing her ways to use her powers she would never have thought of in a million years.

Daniel showed Elsa how he could use his icy winds to aid his movement. He was nearly a blur as he sped around the room. And by freezing the tips of his toes, he could hang from the ceiling. Elsa had tried that one, too, though she'd had to make some ice-leggings first to preserve her modesty. They'd had to stop to laugh for several minutes at the way her braid dangled off her head.

Elsa had even shown Daniel how to unfreeze his ice.

"_That_ would've been helpful back when I was a kid," said Daniel. "I had a huge pile of ice-roses on the bedroom floor."

"What?" Elsa laughed. "Why?"

"They were for her." A faraway look come over his in his eyes.

"Oh." Elsa faltered. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. It was a long time ago." The look vanished as quickly as it'd appeared. "Of course, thanks to her, the vast majority of my ice-tricks are romantic in nature." He illustrated his point by wiggling a finger, causing a diamond necklace of ice to sprout around Elsa's neck.

"Oh, Daniel, it's beautiful, but..." Elsa sighed and removed the jewelry. "I'm not interested in that kind of relationship. Believe me, I'm thrilled you have the same magic as me, and I think we can be good friends, but... please don't expect anything further than that."

Daniel chuckled and unfroze the necklace, causing it to vanish in Elsa's hands. "We'll see. You can't blame me for trying, though. You're beautiful."

Elsa fiddled with her braid. "I think being attractive comes with being a cryomancer."

"Thanks."

Elsa jolted, and her face flushed again. "I was talking about _myself_."

Daniel chuckled some more. "So you _don't_ think I'm attractive?"

Elsa smirked. "You really don't want me to answer that."

There was more laughter. Then, Daniel walked to the far side of the room and opened the window overlooking the palace gardens.

"What are you doing?" asked Elsa.

"How about I show you how to make the ice-roses?" Daniel sent out more cold wind, and a minute later, it returned carrying a normal, non-icy rose that appeared to have been yanked out at the stem. "It's a pretty hard shape to do, so I had to practice a _lot_." He held the real rose towards Elsa. "I started by using the winds to bring a real rose to my window, much like this one. Then I froze its heart. Slowly. From the inside-out."

"I didn't know you could do that to plants."

"Everything alive has a heart," said Daniel. "Maybe not a literal organ, but they all have _something_ there." His fingertips glowed with magic, but when the lights died down, the rose was unchanged.

"Did it work?" asked Elsa.

"Be patient. My magic's a lot weaker than yours. It takes a while for it to freeze hearts. Frankly, there was no real rush to save Fritz. He could have gone _years_ being cold before he ever froze completely. Luckily, it doesn't take as long for flowers." After a minute, the ice started to creep up the stem. Or rather, the stem started to _become_ ice.

But as Elsa watched the plant turn icy, she tensed.

"What's wrong?" frowned Daniel.

Elsa shut her eyes. "How do you know how long it takes you to freeze a heart?"

Daniel was disarmed. "Well... I..." He looked away. "...don't want to talk about it."

"I'm sorry."

Suddenly, the rest of the rose froze over. But it didn't _become_ ice – It was simply covered by it. "Agh! That's not supposed to happen!" Daniel threw the lumpy ice-rose to the ground.

"Don't lose control!" Elsa grabbed his hand.

"Sorry. I try to be numb to it all, but-"

"Don't hide from the past, either," said Elsa. "Just accept it, and know that you're in a better place now."

Daniel let out a sigh. "When we're not making our pointless little creations... all our powers really do is kill people."

Elsa nodded. "I know. I want to love my powers, even after all the damage they've done, but it's not easy. When you found me, I was trying to use my magic to end this drought Arendelle's been trapped in, but... all it did was freeze everything around me."

For a minute, both of them were silent.

"Before you got here," said Elsa, "Anna and I were attacked by a creature called the wight."

Daniel seemed to perk up at this. "What?"

"I don't know what it was, exactly... Some kind of living corpse with black magic. It tried to kill Anna, and... it told me me the purpose of my powers was to kill."

He looked thoughtful. "Why do you think it would say that?"

"I don't know... I don't understand anything about it. But... after what's happened lately... sometimes I wonder if it was right."

Daniel put a hand on Elsa's shoulder. "No matter what the 'purpose' of our powers is, it's a burden you and I share. We'll always have a bond." He conjured up another ice-rose and handed it to her.

"Yeah." Elsa smiled and accepted the gift. "Sorry for keeping you in the dark about the wight, Brandr and all the other insanity going on in my life. I promise I'll explain it all soon. But for now..." She let out a yawn. "I need some rest. Good night, Daniel."

"Good night. Thank you for showing me how to control my ice. You have no idea what that means to me."

They hugged, and then Elsa returned to her own bedroom.

Wow, Daniel had done a better job comforting her than she'd expected. Why was Anna so against him again? Elsa was about to climb back into her bed, but then she remembered the ice-rose still in her hand. With a lazy flick of her wrist, she conjured an ice-vase with a personal flurry on her dresser and stuck the rose inside.

Well, whatever mistakes Daniel had made, they were all forgiven. Elsa had heard more than enough to make up her mind about him.


	53. Mind Games

Usually, Elsa's council meetings were unspeakably boring, but once every blue moon something would catch her attention.

"_Excuse_ _me__?_ _What_ did you just call Fritz?"

"I, err, meant no offensive, Your Majesty," said the advisor, drawing back in his chair. He was one of those men with enough gray hair and wrinkles to look feeble-minded, but not enough to give him any real seniority. "It's not like monarchs haven't gone for even younger ones before."

Elsa's brow creased.

"He's your favourite!" said the advisor. "Your kept man! Your..." His voice trailed off as he caught sight of Elsa's expression.

"We're certainly not making any moral judgments!" his coworker added quickly. "This kind of behavior is quite common. Expected, even. Just look at Catherine the Great. Frankly, you could get away with having more than just two."

"_Two__?_" The room temperature was dropping from nothing but the ice in Elsa's voice. "And _who_, pray tell, is the second one?"

"Well, when we saw that pale boy in the spare bedroom, we assumed-"

"You know what?" Elsa hopped out of her icy throne and made for the door. "I'm not tolerating this any longer. Next time we have a meeting, it'll be to discuss _how to run the country_."

A burst of freezing wind slammed the door behind her.

The council sat in silence.

"_Prude_."

"Actually, you _are_ kind of a pervert, Gerold."

"_Hey__!_ That peddler was selling at a _massive_ discount! I'd have been a fool not to buy them!"

* * *

Who were these depraved old men and why were they on Elsa's council again? Had her parents appointed them? Had they somehow wandered in during the three years before Elsa's coronation? And, more importantly, why hadn't she fired the lot of them by now? Ugh, Elsa would deal with it later. Her head felt like a lead weight, and her eyes were shutting all on their own. Elsa had almost cried last night when she'd returned to her bedroom and checked the clock.

Elsa made her way to the bedchambers hall, where she found Anna waiting for her at the top of the stairs.

"Elsa, there you are!" she said. "Listen, we need to have a talk about Daniel. Not another squabble. A real, _bona fide_ heart-to-heart."

Elsa smiled at her. "I was about to say the same thing."

"Elsa, I..." Anna sighed, then said with no small amount of reluctance, "I know half the reason I've been at Daniel's throat is because I think he's Hans two-point-O."

"It's alright, Anna," Elsa said gently. "Hans hurt you. I should have been more understanding."

"But... But there's something _off_ about Daniel!" said Anna. "I _know_ there is! Every time I look at his perfect little face, I get so... _so__.._."

Elsa took her hands. "Anna, I swear, I will _never _let anyone else hurt you like that again. But I think you might be hurting _yourself_ by letting what Hans did to you dictate your life. Do you have a reason to be so distrusting of Daniel?"

"Yeah!" Anna said immediately. Then she bowed her head. "Well, no... Not any solid evidence, exactly, but... like I've said, he's a creep! He was a jerk to me! And I think he hurt Fritz on purpose!"

Elsa raised an eyebrow. "Why would he do that?"

"To make you give him his gloves back. And then when I came into his room and woke him up to yell at him, he acted all creepy to me." Anna gave Elsa a pleading look. "You _have_ to believe me. I'm not imagining things! Something is really wrong with Daniel, and if it's his word over mine, listen to _me_. I'm your sister. This guy's a stranger."

Elsa paused, contemplative. "I see what I have to do now." She walked past Anna towards Daniel's room. "Follow me."

"You're finally listening to reason?" Anna ran after her, taken aback.

"Daniel." The door swung open, and the royal sisters entered. Daniel was standing by his window, staring off into the sunrise. That seemed to be about as far as his legs could take him. He turned towards them, frowning.

"Yes?"

Elsa looked to her sister. "Anna has an apology to say to you."

"_What__?_" Mount Anna blew its top, showering the bedroom in molten lava. "_I _have to apologize to _hi__m?_"

"_And_ you have one to say to her," Elsa added sternly. "You two are burying the hatchet _now_. I don't want to hear anything else about you being rude and hateful to each other. This family will treat its members with kindness and respect."

"'This family?'" repeated Anna. "Is that supposed to include _him__?_"

But Anna's anger shrank away under the glare Elsa gave her. "I sent Arendelle into eternal winter, and you found it in your heart to forgive _me_. All Daniel's done is act immature and accidentally hurt Fritz, which, by the way, he was extremely upset about afterward."

Anna stepped backwards, slackjawed. "You're siding with _him__?_"

"My support was enough to get Daniel to control his ice," said Elsa. "He's not wearing gloves anymore. But he doesn't have perfect control yet. Daniel's brother turned his back on him. Daniel needs a new family. He needs me, and he needs _you_."

"Your sister's right, Princess Anna," said Daniel. "I'm sorry for the way I treated you. I'm sorry for what I said to Fritz. I'm ready to have a family again." He extended a pale, white, gloveless hand. "I want what you h-"

"_Don't use your pretty boy charms on me!_" Anna smacked it away. "I'm not stupid enough to fall for them! Not anymore!" Her voice was shaking, and not entirely from anger. "I'll prove you're no good all by myself, and then _Elsa_ will be apologizing to _me._"

"Anna-" Before Elsa could get another word in, Anna fled the room. Elsa turned to Daniel. "I'll deal with her. You stay here."

"It's not like I've got the strength to go anywhere else yet," shrugged Daniel.

Elsa walked down the hall as quickly as her heels would allow, but luckily, Anna hadn't gotten far. She'd simply returned to sitting at the top of the stairs.

"You okay?" Elsa asked softly.

"Elsa." Anna hid her face. "You have to make an oath between me and God. Swear you'll never ever _ever_ fall in love with Daniel."

Elsa chuckled. "You know, I don't actually find him as appealing as you seem to think."

"Okay." Anna took a deep breath. "I know I just... flipped out for no reason. I'll... I'll say I'm sorry to him."

Elsa knelt down to put a hand on her shoulder. "That's all I expect from you."

Anna rose to her feet. "But if I _ever_ catch you kissing him, so help me I will smack you until ice shoots out your ears."

Elsa chuckled again. "If I wanted to kiss someone – which I don't – I'd pick Fritz over Daniel any day of the week."

Anna's face lit up. "_Really?_"

Elsa gave a sly smile. "Don't tell him I said that. The poor kid's finally gotten over me."

Anna grinned. "I don't blame you. Fritz isn't half-bad at kissing, actually."

Elsa stared at her.

Anna's eyes widened. "I mean, uh... _TimetogoapologizetoDanielcomeon!_"

* * *

Anna was standing in the doorway, her eyes on the floor. She'd rather do anything than be here right now, but after Elsa cleared her throat, Anna reluctantly got out, "Daniel, I... I'm sorry for... accusing you and yelling at you and... and thinking you'd hurt Fritz on purpose."

"I forgive you, Your Highness." Daniel smiled at her. "Your concerns were completely understandable."

It was taking everything Anna had not to sock him right in his smug little face.

* * *

"Okay, fine, fine, maybe he's not on the same level as Hans," Anna said as the sisters strolled down the halls. "I still trust him about as far as I can throw Marshmallow."

"Well, I'm proud of you," said Elsa. "Come on, let's go do something fun together. Just you and me. No Daniel."

"That's the best thing you've said all-"

But their conversation came to a halt as they passed a white-haired old man, leaning his back against the wall with his arms folded.

"Admiral Klaus?" said Elsa tightly.

"Walking out on _another _council meeting, Your Majesty?" said Klaus. "Your advisors were complaining quite loudly about it, but none of them have the spine to say anything to your face. Apparently they're frightened you'll summon more snow-monsters to throw them out of the castle."

"Who're you supposed to be?" asked Anna.

"Lately, my advisors have only been interested in speculating about my personal life and inventing harebrained schemes to deal with the drought," said Elsa. "I've been attending these meetings for months, and I have hardly anything to show for it. And besides, a... new issue has arisen that needs my more immediate attention"

"Yes, I heard about that sickly boy you've taken in," said Klaus. "For your people's sake, I hope you're not neglecting your duties because of him." Klaus proceeded down the hall.

As soon as she was out of his line of sight, Anna stuck out her tongue and made a face.

"_Anna__!_" Elsa tried to scold her, but scolding is hard when you're trying not to laugh.

"Tell me you haven't been letting that guy bully you," said Anna.

"I'm fine," said Elsa. "Klaus is just a little opinionated. He's not completely wrong, though. I've let Daniel distract me from more important issues."

"Yeah, you've still got Brandr to worry about." Just the thought of him was enough to make Anna's fists clench. "Daniel _might_ be a jerk, but Brandr's _definitely_ a jerk."

"The snowbirds have been keeping an eye on Arendelle," said Elsa. "As far as they know, Brandr hasn't left my Ice Palace. From what he's said, it doesn't sound like Brandr's going to attack me anytime soon, but he _is_ a magical creature... He's unpredictable."

"I don't think he's _totally_ unpredictable," said Anna. "I mean, he's clearly trying to scare people into thinking you're some crazy evil sorceress. We just need to figure out how to _un_-scare them."

Elsa bowed her head. "I'm not sure we _can_. It was stupid of me to think turning the courtyard into a skating-rink would be enough to make people like me after everything I did."

"Wait a minute." A spark passed through Anna's eyes. "That's _exactly_ what we should do!"

Elsa looked lost. "You want to go ice-skating?"

"Yeah!" said Anna. "I mean, think about it – What kind of crazy evil sorceress goes ice-skating? That's, like, the least scary thing ever. If people see you skating and having a good time, they'll know you're not evil."

Elsa folded her arms. "I seriously doubt people are that simple-minded."

* * *

"Hey, look, the queen's making a skating rink again!"

"That looks like fun!"

"Are you insane? Didn't you hear what that faerie guy said? She's a crazy evil sorceress!"

"Oh, come on, what kind of crazy evil sorceress goes ice-skating?"

"Huh. I guess you're right..."

Every brick of cobblestone had been covered in a smooth layer of ice. Well, actually, thanks to the palace's icy makeover, the courtyard was always covered in ice. All Elsa had done was remove the "snow carpet" that prevented slipping. The sisters had made a big to-do about the skating rink being re-opened, which had attracted an impressive crowd of citizens. Elsa had even offered to outfit anyone who asked with a shiny new pair of ice skates, or, uh, ice-ice skates. Even Kristoff, Sven, and the snowmen joined the fun, though Kristoff had passed on doing any actual skating. Anna had suggested they give Sven two pairs of skates, but Kristoff vetoed the idea, so instead Sven was left skidding out-of-control on his hooves.

"Well." Kristoff watched his reindeer try and fail to skid towards an oblivious snowman. "At least Olaf's nose is safe for now."

Elsa was nearly trampled by the crowd of people demanding ice-ice skates. It was a little like signing autographs, only more magical (In fact, some entrepreneurs clever enough to keep their skates in cold storage would later auction them off for insane prices, along with stray bits of Elsa's hair and a frozen-solid handkerchief).

"Hey, Elsa," said Kristoff, "I bet some of the troll kids would love to do stuff like this ice-skating. When do you think it'll be okay to bring them out of the valley and let them, y'know, mingle with people?"

Elsa sighed. "Maybe once Brandr is gone. Right now, people seem a little sensitive to being around magical creatures-"

"_Agh! Look out! The monsters are back again!_"

Right on cue, people spotted the trio of giant snowmen attempting to skate daintily on their tippy toes. Elsa sighed and skated towards them.

"My snowmen are not-"

"Wait," said a random plebeian. "Is that snow-monster wearing a tiara?"

After that, it was a little harder to be scared of them.

Elsa spent the next several minutes explaining the concept of magical, snowman-brainwashing daggers to anyone who'd listen and assuring people the palace was paying for the damages to the town square. Elsa sighed and glanced over at Anna. At least _she_ was having fun.

"Anna, slow down!" Kristoff was yelling from the edge of the rink. "You can barely even keep your balance when you're _not_ skating!"

"Don't worry, I got this! I'm a natural at _aaaaaaaaaagh!_" _Thunk._

But Elsa's attention was brought away from Anna by a high-pitched voice yelling, "Look! Look! It's Queen Elsa!"

A gigantic group of parents with children was coming towards her. There were massive amounts of little girls with braided hair, covered from head-to-toe in Queen Elsa-inspired merchandise – including a couple four-year-olds with bears identical to Fritz's – and hauling stressed-looking parents around ("She sings _Let It Go_ fifty times a day!" one father said on the brink of tears. "_Make it stop!_").

Elsa couldn't believe how many people were willing to wait in an enormous line in the sweltering heat just for the chance to meet-and-greet with the queen. It was crazy. Like some kind of hysteria had gripped the whole world.

Her patience was worn thin after the first couple hours of this, but seeing all this enthusiasm still made Elsa smile a little inside. She found her eyes wandering towards a cute brunette woman Elsa vaguely recognized as one of the palace maids – The one who'd gone on maternity leave. One hand was around her swollen belly, the other around her husband, a man who looked like an older, less scrawny version of Fritz.

Elsa found herself smiling. But then her eyes caught another child – couldn't be older than four – hanging back from the rest of the ice-skating crowd. Every few seconds, he would take a fearful glance towards her.

"Hello there." With the crowd finally diminished, Elsa was able to re-form her ice-ice skates, glide over to the boy, and then change her footwear back to ice-heels. "What's your name?"

"You made it snow," the child said faintly.

"Yes, I did. But it wasn't on purpose."

She tried to pat him on the head, but he shrank back.

"I'm not going to hurt you," she assured him.

"Yes you will!" The child brought his hands to his eyes. "Just like you hurt Jack!"

Elsa's heart nearly stopped. Her smile gave way to a more genuine expression. "Who's Jack?"

"My dog."

Elsa's pulse slowed down a bit. "Oh. I see."

"He slept outside."

"I'm sorry." She knelt to meet the boy's big, watery eyes. "I've never wanted to hurt anyone or anything, but I let myself be scared. But I'm not the same person I was. It will never happen again, I promise."

"Can you bring Jack back?"

Elsa shook her head. "Some of the plants came back to life, but I don't think dogs... or people... can ever really come back. Not even with magic."

The child seemed to accept this answer. He also accepted a hug.

"_Get away from him__!_" His mother, on the other hand, didn't accept a darn thing. "_What do you think you're doing, putting your cursed hands on my boy?_" She was a middle-aged woman who would've looked pretty if it wasn't for her snarling face. The woman struck Elsa as only about half as batty as Fritz's mother, which was still quite a bit batty.

"I wasn't hurting him," said Elsa patiently. "I was only explaining my-"

"We don't talk to _your_ _kind__!_"

"But Mama-" The child was immediately yanked away.

"They should've never let an ungodly changeling onto the throne!" spat the woman. "You belonged at the bottom of the river the day you were born!"

People were beginning to halt their skating to see what all the commotion was about.

Elsa exhaled through her nostrils, then pulled herself up to her full stature. "Guards, escort this woman out."

But before the guards could near her, a snowbird dropped from the sky and landed between them. "Your Majesty."

"_Agh__!_ It talks!" The woman jumped back, dragging her sobbing child with her. "Sorcery! _Sorcery!_"

"Yes, it _is_ sorcery," said Elsa dryly. "What an astute observation."

"Brandr and his horse left your Ice Palace," said the snowbird. "They disappeared in a cloud of black smoke."

"Oh _no_." That was _exactly_ what Elsa needed... "Do you know where they are now?"

A cloud of inky smoke materialized in the center of the skating rink.

"Right over there," said the snowbird.

"I _can't believe_ it," said a voice from the smoke. "You're having an ice-skating party, and you didn't invite _me_?"

"Everyone get back!" Elsa yelled to the crowd. "Brandr is dangerous!"

"Not this guy again!" Anna ran to Elsa's side, followed by Kristoff, Sven, and the snowmen.

"It's fine," Elsa told them. "Brandr can't hurt me without breaking the Fae law. Not unless I attack first."

"Do I have to go back in his sword again?" asked Olaf. "I don't think I liked it in there very much."

"You and your brothers get behind me," said Elsa. "I'll keep you safe." The snowmen complied, though the huddling would've been easier for Cloud, Cottonball, and Marshmallow if their mama had been a wee bit bigger.

"You know-" Brandr's voice was once again magically audible to the entire crowd. "-I took you Arendellians for a smarter bunch. Sure, Her Queeniness looks innocent when she's giving you all free ice-skates, but just wait 'till you rub her the wrong way. Why, if I hadn't intervened just now, she would've frozen this poor woman to death!" He gestured to the batty woman, who didn't actually seem much happier to see the magical faerie than the magical sorceress.

Elsa overlooked the crowd. "I hope nobody here is stupid enough to believe-"

"_Look out!_" screamed Brandr. "_She's got freeze-ray eye-beams!_"

Citizens were sent fleeing the instant Elsa's gaze crossed them.

"Oh, come on! She does _not__!_" yelled Anna. Then, she paused, looked thoughtful, and turned to Elsa. "Do you?"

"Of course not," said Elsa, followed by, "Don't look so disappointed..."

"The faerie is right!" screamed a member of the crowd who before now had been ice-skating quite happily. "I heard the queen steals children out of cradles!"

"No, the faerie are the ones who do that!" said Elsa.

Brandr gasped and put a hand over his heart. "Trying to blame _me_ for _her_ crimes? Are there no depths to which this vile sorceress won't sink?"Just then, his eyes fell on Charlotte. "Ooh! Ooh! Somebody's preggers!" He ran towards her, grinning from ear to ear. "Is it your firstborn? How healthy do you think it'll be? Just, uh, out of random curiosity..."

Charlotte screamed and hid behind her husband, who scowled at Brandr.

"Get out of Arendelle!" he spat. "We don't want _Fair Folk_ here!"

"I don't _have_ to be here if nobody wants me to be," said Brandr coyly. "But I have a feeling you guys will be singing a different tune once Arendelle's under six feet of powder again. Or maybe you can go ahead and enlist my services now if you want the drought to end quicker."

"I didn't cause the drought!" Elsa yelled to the crowd. "Brandr is a liar!"

"Yes you did!" yelled back a member of the mob.

"How?" yelled Anna. "She has _ice _powers_!_ How does that make even the slightest bit of sense?"

"Well, what do you suppose happens to the water in Arendelle when it's all frozen at once, then magically thawed?" the man replied smugly.

"I don't know," said Anna. "What _does _happen?"

"Uh..." The man looked blank. He turned to Brandr expectantly.

"It's bad," said Brandr, who looked equally as blank. "Super bad. Just... magic... then water... and, uh... then the drought happens. Because magic."

Olympus shook his head. Then he slipped on the skating rink and landed on his belly. Sven gave him a sympathetic look – This was only the second time they'd met, but the two were already buddies.

"You should leave, Brandr," said Elsa, her eyes narrowing. "The people of Arendelle have made it clear that they don't want your services."

"So what? I can stick around if I want. Who's gonna stop me, _you__?_" In the blink of an eye, Brandr reached his hands into his coat and drew out a pair of swords, one blue and one violet. "Yeah, that's right, I dug these puppies out of your ice. With my own fingernails, no less. It wasn't fun, so forgive me if I'm not in the most patient of moods."

"Why did you come here?" asked Elsa.

"I was just seeing what you were up to," said Brandr innocently. "Besides, I've gotta drop by this town every so often to pick up food. Would you believe there's _nothing to eat_ up on the North Mountain? I mean, beings of pure magic like _moi_ don't really do the whole 'digestive system' thing, but what about Olympus? Look at him! He's practically skin and bone!"

The horse shot its owner a look that said, "Don't drag _me_ into this."

Brandr frowned at Elsa. "Come to think of it, what did _you_ eat up there?"

Elsa folded her arms. "Why should I tell _you?_"

"Look, do you _want_ this poor horse to starve to death?"

She sighed. "Fine, fine, I guess I can't stop you from buying food."

"Buying food," said Brandr. "Right." He slung a leg over his horse. "Now, if you'll excuse us, Olympus and me will be on our way to go lawfully acquire some apples by exchanging currency for them."

The crowd held its breath as Brandr made for the gates, once again clearing a path for him as if compelled by some outside force.

"Bye bye!" Brandr called out. "I'll be on my best behavior!" As he spoke, Brandr lazily flicked a sword in a nearby skater's direction. The man's ice-ice skates vanished, causing him to face-plant. Brandr snickered to himself, then rode Olympus out the gates.

For a minute, the crowd stood in silence, watching him vanish over the horizon towards town.

"He seems nice," smiled Olaf.

"Well," said Elsa. "That was-" But then she yelped in surprise as a cloud of smoke formed before her face.

It solidified into the unmistakable shape of Brandr's ugly mug. "On yeah, one more thing!" he added. "You wouldn't happen to be housing any other cryomancers in that big old castle of yours, would you?"

Elsa's eyes went wide.

"Good, good," nodded the disembodied head. "I was just checking. Cuz, y'know, if you _did_ have another cryomancer with you, I'd want to kill him, too, but I take it from your silence that you don't, so it's no big deal." Both his head and voice grew fainter and fainter until they vanished completely. "I don't even know why I asked you that. Ha ha ha! I'm so goofy and random..."

* * *

After that, it'd taken another couple hours to calm the masses and assure them that, yes, Elsa was a dangerous sorceress, but she was on _their_ side, and they were in no immediate danger from the faerie. Long story short, Anna ended up having to help a half-awake Elsa walk to her bedroom.

"I have to warn Daniel about Brandr," Elsa mumbled into Anna's shoulder.

"No, you need to get some sleep," said Anna as she tucked her under the covers. "You really pooped yourself out today. Bedsides, that Fae law thingy is stopping Brandr from just running you guys through with his sword, right? Nobody even knows who Daniel is, so if people aren't gonna make a bargain with Brandr to kill you, there's no way they'll do it for Daniel, right?"

"Anna..." Elsa managed to say before shutting her eyes. "..._you_ tell Daniel, alright?"

"_What__? _Why do _I_ have to do it?"

But Elsa was already snoring.

* * *

Daniel had been pacing around his bedroom, trying to build up strength in his legs, when a pair of red pigtails with a head attached to them poked through his doorway.

"Hey, Danny!" Anna gave a nervous chuckle. "Life's crazy, isn't it? I mean, you woke up this morning thinking there _wasn't_ a cryomancer-slayer running around Arendelle plotting to kill you."

Daniel raised an eyebrow.

Anna bowed her head. "We probably should've told you sooner."


	54. In the Lions' Den

A chestnut horse galloped through the forests of Arendelle. Every so often, it'd pass some landmark, and Elsa's mind would snap back to _that_ night. But things were different now. There was no trail of ice in the horse's wake.

Elsa was headed back to the Valley of the Living Rock, and this time, she wasn't alone. Daniel was behind her on the saddle, his arms around her waist. Elsa wasn't completely comfortable with this arrangement, but she'd made it very clear that if Daniel tried anything funny, he'd be sent on a one-way trip to the cold, hard ground. There had been no problems so far.

After several agonizing minutes of uncomfortable physical contact, the horse finally arrived at the edge of the valley.

"You barely weigh anything," said Elsa as she helped Daniel dismount. "We need to get you some food before you starve yourself to death."

Daniel brought a hand to his stomach, which almost had a depression in it. He looked tempted, but he simply said, "Later. This is more important," then followed Elsa towards Grand Pabbie's burrow.

"Who'd have guessed there was a whole colony of rock trolls in Arendelle's wilderness?" said Daniel.

"Magic seems to have a way of hiding from people," said Elsa.

"How many trolls _are_ there, exactly?"

"A _lot_. But we don't have time to deal with all of them right now." Elsa approached a hole at the base of a tree and called out, "Grand Pabbie?"

No answer.

"Maybe he's not home?" said Daniel.

But then the two heard a gasp. They turned to find the old troll standing there, leaning into a troll-sized walking stick and gaping at them.

"Impossible," Grand Pabbie breathed. "_Another_ cryomancer?"

"Hi." Daniel gave a cheerful wave.

"Where did you come from?" asked Grand Pabbie. "Why are you here?"

"Daniel heard about my eternal winter and came to Arendelle to find me," said Elsa. "But he didn't realize that would make him another target for Brandr."

"I see." Grand Pabbie took a moment to let this revelation sink in, then let out a wry chuckle. "It appears I underestimated the amount of magic left in this world. Strange that, after all this time, not only does the most powerful cryomancer in history emerge, but a _second _one emerges as well..."

"Well, I'm not quite as powerful as Elsa," said Daniel.

Grand Pabbie nodded. "Good. Are your powers under control?"

"More control than usual, at least." Daniel placed his hand on the tree trunk. It didn't ice over, but it did accumulate some frost. "But what about the faerie? It won't matter how many cryomancers are running around in the world if it kills all of them."

"We're keeping a close eye on him." Elsa held out her arm, causing a snowbird to drop from the sky to perch on it. "What's Brandr doing now?" she asked it.

"He appears to be using various tricks to distract produce merchants so he can slip apples into his pockets undetected," said the bird.

Elsa sent the snowbird away, then turned back to Grand Pabbie. "He's not hurting anything yet."

"Well, then, we'd better kill this thing before it has the chance," said Daniel. "It said its soul was in its swords, right? So all we have to do is destroy them."

Elsa nodded. "Yes, but since the swords absorb ice, the only way I could expose them to enough raw magic to shatter them was with water, and..." Elsa's flashbacks switched to the image of a drowning man. "...I couldn't do it. The water turned back to ice. And after that, I haven't been able to make water again."

"I have a theory about that, actually," said Grand Pabbie. "Despite my ignorance of cryomancy, I'd always felt confident that manipulation of liquid was beyond its reach. After all, your powers are not merely over ice and snow, but over the _winter_, and liquid water is not intrinsically linked to that."

"But then why could I make water at all?" asked Elsa.

"From what you've told me, the only situations where you've made water successfully were ones where Brandr's blades were also present," said Grand Pabbie. "I believe that the presence of the antimagic is distorting your magic. You see, antimagic is not inherently stronger than magic – It's merely an equal and opposite force, and whichever force is more powerful wins out. When the hatred is strong enough for Brandr's antimagic to win, your ice is vaporized and drawn into his sword. But when your sorcery is strong enough to win, it manifests as water and shatters the sword."

"But how does this help us?" asked Daniel. "It sounds to me like Elsa's magic is just weaker than the faerie's, or else she'd have shattered its swords already."

"I might have just... lost my nerve," said Elsa.

"It helps us because I have a way for Elsa to practice." Grand Pabbie hopped into his burrow and returned a minute later with three green crystal daggers and an empty snow globe in his arms. "I've taken the time to examine these artifacts. Brandr seems to have forged them specifically to deal with ice-golems. The daggers control the minds of magical constructs, while the orb imprisons them. They don't house his soul like the swords, but these items still have antimagic, which means, if my understanding is correct, you can practice making water to destroy them. Once you're comfortable doing it, perhaps you can battle Brandr without 'losing your nerve.'"

"Thank you, Grand Pabbie." Elsa accepted the items, freezing them in a big ice cube for easier transport. "You've been more than helpful. I owed you Anna's life, and now I owe you mine and Daniel's, too. I don't know how I can make this up to you."

"Wait." This seemed to catch Daniel's attention. "Anna owes the trolls her life?"

"When I froze Anna's heart, Grand Pabbie told her how to cure it," said Elsa. "And years before that, he saved her when I froze her head."

"I didn't know you'd hurt your sister before."

"It was why I was locked away in the first place," Elsa said sadly.

"And how did you heal her frozen head? I..." Daniel glanced away. "I didn't think there was any cure for that."

"Unlike the heart, which needs an act of pure emotion to heal, the head requires something rational," said Grand Pabbie. "I had to drain the magic from Anna's body, then alter her memories."

Daniel's head shot Grand Pabbie's way. "You can alter memories?"

"Only when I must. To disrupt one's mind for any other reason would be a great evil."

"Interesting. Well, this has been informative." Daniel turned away, laughing and muttering to himself. "Never would've guessed there were trolls here... Arendelle continues to surprise me..."

"Thank you again for your help, Grand Pabbie." Elsa conjured up an ice-satchel to hold the daggers, then made for her horse. "I think we're ready to leave."

But just before she and Daniel could mount, they heard a delighted cry from the edge of the woods. Elsa and Daniel spun around to find a handful of trolls, Bulda at the lead, all staring at the boy and girl, specifically the position of Elsa's arms.

"Queen Elsa's got a boyfriend!" Bulda cheered.

"What? No!" Elsa immediately threw Daniel off of her. "You've got it wrong. I don't even _want_ a boyfriend."

"_Ohhhhhhh_, I understand." Mr. Kidney Stone rolled up to give Elsa a reassuring pat on the back and a knowing wink. "Don't worry. The way you feel is completely natural, and don't you let anybody tell you otherwise, honey! Why, I myself-"

"Listen, it's not that I don't want to visit," cut in Elsa, putting on the most polite, patient voice she could muster. "But I'm extremely busy right now. Maybe some other-"

"Oh, come on, dear!" said Bulda, hopping forward. "I sense so much chemistry between you two. In fact... I think I feel a song coming on!"

The trolls immediately broke out into a choreographed dance sequence. "_So you're a bit of a-_"

"_Extremelybusygottagobye!_"

* * *

"For the last time!" Morten hissed through gritted teeth. "Just because the princess of DunBroch doesn't want to marry any of her suitors doesn't mean she's-"

The duo's bickering was cut short by the castle's front doors swinging open and the queen emerging. Her three giant snowmen immediately ran to her side to receive some affectionate pats on the nose.

"Could you usher the citizens away from the courtyard for a while?" Elsa said to the guards by the gates.

Henrik and Morten complied, shooing out the handful of citizens still holding out for hope that the courtyard would return to being a skating rink. Once they were a safe distance away, Elsa sent her snowmen away, too, then walked out to the center of the yard. She threw up her arms, causing smooth walls of ice to sprout from there to the front door. It was like she'd made a tinier courtyard inside the original.

Elsa returned to the front door and opened it. "You can come out now. Nobody will disturb us."

Daniel slowly hobbled outside, still in the pajamas he'd been given. "Thank you." He nodded his approval at the walls. "They may be fine with _you_, but I'm not ready to mingle with your citizens. Not yet."

"It's alright. I understand." Elsa gave Daniel a questioning look. With another flick of her hands, Elsa sent out a little gust of freezing wind to carry the three daggers and snow globe into the ice-arena. They could have done this inside, of course, but Anders's life was slipping away fast enough already without the knowledge that people were shooting water inside the castle and he was powerless to stop them. "There's no harm in seeing if you can make water, but I doubt you'd do much good against Brandr."

"I'd like to try, all the same," said Daniel. "But ladies first, of course."

Elsa stepped forward, using the winds to drop the four artifacts at the far end of the arena. Then, she held out her palm and conjured an ice-crystal. This time, it morphed straight into water, not even bothering to become snow first.

"Looks like Grand Pabbie was right." Elsa started to smile. Making water was something she'd tried every so often as a child, but it'd only ever ended in frustration. Even when she'd simply waited for her ice to melt, Elsa had only ever been able to watch it fade away the instant it turned to liquid. There was something vindicating about finally getting to balance a miniature whirlpool in her palm.

There was still that vague sense of wrongness in the pit of her stomach, but now that Grand Pabbie had pointed it out, Elsa could tell it was the antimagic. Her magic wasn't supposed to manifest as water – The antimagic was stretching it out of shape, so to speak.

After a few seconds, the sense of wrongness grew too great, and Elsa flicked her wrist. The water shot forth, striking the snow globe and shattering it into a million pieces. Elsa immediately conjured more water and was relieved to see it solidify into an ice-crystal on command.

"Doesn't look too hard." Daniel stepped forward. He held out a palm and conjured up an ice-crystal of his own, but after several seconds of straining, it was left as solid as ever. "Wait, I probably wasn't focusing right. I'm great at figuring out little tricks with my magic. This should be a cinch."

Cinches probably shouldn't take more than half an hour to accomplish. Elsa watched Daniel furiously make crystal after increasingly misshapen crystal. Some of them melted from the drought's heat, if that counted for anything.

After the umpteenth failed attempt, Elsa said, "Focus on the temperature around you. The sun on your neck."

"What?" Daniel's brow creased. "How would _that_ do any good? Thanks to my magic, I can barely even feel heat. And at this rate, I'm gonna hit my ice-limit, and then the sun on my neck won't exactly feel pleasant."

"I know Grand Pabbie never said anything about it, but I think getting used to warmth is an important part of making water."

"We'recryomancers!" snapped Daniel. "We're meant for the cold, not the heat. My magic's probably just too weak to overcome the antimagic."

Elsa's own brow creased. "Even so, I think adjusting to warmth would do you good. When I first learned control, anything too hot would set my powers off."

Daniel rolled his eyes. "Fine. Whatever you think is best."

One of the benefits of being queen is that if you ever want chocolate, there's always a servant hovering nearby ready to hand it to you the second the request leaves your mouth. Soon enough, a maid entered the front door to hand Elsa and Daniel a tray with two steaming cups.

"People actually _drink_ this stuff?" Daniel eyed his mug warily.

"It's chocolate." Just looking at the brown liquid was enough to give Elsa a sugar high. She had to restrain herself from taking a gigantic, unladylike slurp.

Daniel made a face. "Ugh. I _hate_ chocolate."

Elsa nearly dropped her cup. She'd heard him utter the words "I," "hate," and "chocolate" in sequence, but her brain couldn't seem to divulge any intelligible meaning from it. Kristoff was right, Daniel _did _have serious issues. What else did he hate, _breathing?_

"The taste isn't important," she said, just barely managing to sound calm. "Focus on the heat. I should warn you, it's disconcerting at first."

"I've felt heat before." Daniel scowled and raised his cup to his lips. "I'm not a baby- _Agh!_"

"_Daniel?_"

Perfectly good chocolate was spilled on the snowy ground as Daniel flailed about, shrieking his head off.

"_Daniel, calm down!_"

"_What did you do to me?_" he shrieked. "_My mouth is on fire! My-!_"

Her sympathy for Daniel wasn't as high as it could be, but Elsa still felt bad for laughing. It'd been a lot less funny when it'd happened to her, after all. But then Daniel tumbled backwards against an ice-wall... and kept on tumbling straight through to the other side, moving through the ice as if it were liquid. It was the trick he'd shown her the other night, only applied to his entire body and apparently done on accident.

"_Daniel?_" Elsa dropped the ice-walls and ran to him, but she was too late. A little crowd had already formed to speculate about the walls she'd made, and now every last eye was fixed on Daniel and, specifically, the trail of ice that had erupted from his hands.

"Look! It's Jack Frost!"

"No, it's another person like the queen!"

"I knew it! Her curse is spreading! It's infected another!"

Daniel tried to bolt like a frightened rabbit, but his legs gave out on him. He collapsed onto the cobblestone, screaming, "Stay away from me! Stay away!"

"Everyone stay back!" Elsa was having some very bad deja vu. There was even a woman with a baby in her arms. "Daniel doesn't want to hurt you, but you're frightening-"

The crowd wasn't listening. They were too busy fleeing as a bolt of ice shot from Daniel's hand.

"_Daniel, stay calm!_" Elsa said in about the least calming tone of voice possible.

"They're going to kill me, they're going to kill me!" Daniel seemed to be chanting to himself. "With torches and fire and-"

But torches and fire were the least of Daniel's problems. Just as the last few panicked citizens fled out the gates, a cloud of inky black smoke began to form.

Elsa's eyes widened. "Daniel, listen, Brandr can't hurt you! There's a Fae law that-"

"Well, well, well." She was drowned out by another voice. The smoke took the shape of a tall dark, man accompanied by a horse eating from a gigantic tub of expensive-looking apples. "Looks like when I asked you if you had another cryomancer around and you just stared at me stupidly, what you were really trying to say was, 'Yes, Brandr, you handsome devil, I _do_ have another cryomancer with me. You're totally welcome to kill him!'" He drew his twin swords.

Elsa put herself in front of Daniel. "Stay away from him. His magic is weaker. _I'm_ the one you want."

Brandr hugged himself. "D'aww, how sweet! Is he your boyfriend? Or maybe just your gay best friend? I never can tell with these pretty boy types."

The cryomancer-slayer's arrival didn't seem to be having a calming effect of Daniel. "Get back! Don't touch me!" He tried to pull himself to his feet, but his legs wouldn't budge.

"What's wrong, pretty boy?" smirked Brandr. "You wanna go cry to your mommy?"

Daniel froze. Then he gave the faerie a death glare.

Brandr's smirk widened. "Ooh, or was that too much of an assumption? What's wrong, momma's boy? Did I hit a nerve?"

"Ignore him, Daniel," said Elsa in a frantic whisper. "He's tying to provoke you. He can't actually attack you unless-"

"So tell me, momma's boy," said Brandr, examining his fingernails. "How'd she die?"

A bolt of frost hit him in the face.

There was a distortion from the blades, and the ice cleared from Brandr's head to reveal a big grin. "Too easy."

"_Daniel-!_" Elsa tried to stop him, but it all happened so _fast_. The next thing she knew, Daniel was throwing bolt after bolt and Brandr, each one getting drawn into the swords. Elsa tried to make water, but before she could focus herself, Brandr had dragged Daniel to the other side of the courtyard in the blink of an eye.

"I wouldn't put another chip in my favorite sword if I was you, Your Queeniness." Brandr pointed with his eyes to the big crack down the blue sword, which was currently pressed up against Daniel's neck.

Elsa's heart was beating faster. The crimson illustrations from the Mother Winter story flashed through her brain. She was such an idiot. She should've known this would happen. Elsa shut her eyes. And now she was losing her _one_ _shot_ at not being alone...

"Don't worry, I'm not sending your little buddy here to the big Ice Palace in the sky," said Brandr. "_Yet_. How 'bout we make another bargain? Y'know, since the last one worked out so well."

Elsa's eyes shot open. "What do you want, then?"

"Nothing much," shrugged Brandr. "Let's keep it simple. His life for yours. I'll let pretty boy here go in exchange for you taking a permanent vacation to the otherworld. Sound fair?"

"No," said Elsa tightly. "My magic is stronger than his. It's not a fair trade."

"Yeah, well, I'm holding a sword to your pal's throat, so too bad so sad. Besides, you're a superpowered orphan, right? You've probably got a major hero complex." As he spoke, Brandr, Olympus, and Daniel started to fade into dark smoke. "I'll be at my Ice Palace, same deal as last time. Of course, you're welcome to just screw the bargain and try to duke it out with me. I'll be happy to kill you both – more magic for the otherworld, right? And we both know you're too much of a sissy to break my swords." His voice stayed a few seconds after the rest of Brandr faded, but eventually it, too, disappeared.

Elsa was left standing alone in the courtyard, save for a handful of confused bystanders staring at the commotion. Her eyes fell on the emerald daggers lying in the middle of the courtyard. With one gesture of her arm, Elsa sent out a wave that crushed all three of them into dust.

* * *

The cloud of smoke re-formed a the top of the icy staircase on the North Mountain, manifesting into a faerie, a cryomancer, an empty tub, and a very full horse.

"Welcome to my amazing Ice Palace," said Brandr, shoving Daniel into the snow. "Hope you like it, cuz you'll be spending the rest of your life here, if you catch my drift."

Daniel simply pulled his face out of the snow and hissed in displeasure.

"Gosh." Brandr made a show of examining him. "Haven't I seen you somewhere before? I never forget a face."

"You know who I am."

"No, no, let me guess! Uh..." Brandr strained his forehead. "My old roommate?"

Olympus rolled his eyes and trotted into the castle to avoid all the craziness.

"You're not that viking I met in that bar, are you? Because we promised never to talk about that night again."

"Don't you ever shut up?"

"No, no, I think I'm getting warmer! Are you..." Brandr feigned disgust. "Ugh, you're not some reincarnation of Jack Frost, are you?"

"_I said shut up__!_"

"Or maybe you're one of Mother Winter's little squirts?" Brandr leaned in to touch his pointer finger to Daniel's nose. "You've definitely got her surly attitude. But... nah, I'm pretty sure I killed all those kids. I'm nothing if not thorough."

"_Will you drop this charade, faerie? I'm not in the mood for games._"

"Fine, fine, spoil sport." Brandr grabbed Daniel by the arm, an ice-eating sword in the other hand, and dragged him towards the ice-castle. "Heh, you've really got Her Queeniness fooled, though. I can't wait for her to come here and get killed trying to save you. It'll be so ironic!" He paused, looked pensive, then ran inside, dragging Daniel with him. "Olympus! How does irony work again? I always forget the rules. It's different from coincidence, right...?"

* * *

Daniel watched the ice shards fall from his palm to the floor. And in that one moment, everything became so clear.

A freezing wind swirled through the bedroom, knocking the quilt off his bed, tugging the curtains by the bolted-shut window... and sending every last ice-rose into the air. The next instant, hundreds upon hundreds of roses were twisting and morphing in midair. Now none of them resembled a perfect rose, unless that perfect rose happened to be very jagged and sharp.

Slowly, confidently, Daniel rose to his feet, facing the door, the sharpened roses floating around him. Then he raised his arm and, in one quick motion, threw it forward. The roses followed suit.

When the first rose embedded itself in the wood of the locked door, it didn't really do much. When the five hundredth rose embedded itself, the door gave way. Daniel strolled out lazily.

He made a halfhearted attempt to dig the roses back out, but they were stuck tight, and he didn't have that much time. Instead, Daniel dashed down the stairs. He would've found the front door a lot faster if he'd ever actually been in any part of the house besides the little hallway with his room and the bathroom before.

Nevertheless, he made it to the front door... but Daniel wasn't the only one. Of course, Daniel hadn't exactly thought this through, but even in his recklessness, he hadn't been stupid enough to imagine he would escape without drawing attention to himself. He just didn't care anymore.

"Where do you think you're going?"

Sure enough, there was his father blocking the doorway, a half-empty bottle in one hand... a belt in the other.

"Where's Olive?" demanded Daniel.

"I warned you, _boy_." His father took a step closer. "I gave you _every_ chance, even after what you did. What is it going to take, you little murderer? _What's it going to take_?"

Daniel flourished his arms, but nothing happened. Five hundred roses was his limit.

* * *

Currently, Eric was standing before the washroom mirror, making sure he looked presentable. His two week trip with Father was going to be an enormous business opportunity, and the brief delay gave Eric a chance to add some last-minute touches to his appearance. Eric focused very hard on shaving, tidying his haircut, adjusting the cufflinks on his dress jacket, thinking about his future, and ignoring the faint sounds of screaming from downstairs.


	55. The Tragic End of a True Hero

Now that Elsa had gone from covering everything from the neck down to strutting around showing off a leg, there was something painful about looking in the mirror and seeing a woman with no make-up and her hair in a bun. Normally, she would've never touched a hairstyle that so much as vaguely reminded her of her old fashion sense, but in this instance, fashion had to take a backseat to function. Elsa _really_ didn't put it past Brandr to yank on her braid or something in the middle of combat.

The ice-dress, too, had had to go, and in its place was some black, lightweight body armor borrowed from the royal guards. Elsa wasn't exactly muscular enough for a full-blown suit of armor, but she at least needed something that could block a sword swing. And, unfortunately, ice-armor wouldn't be doable this time. Frankly, Elsa was lucky Brandr hadn't completely disintegrated her clothes in their last fight. She wasn't about to tempt him again.

Other than that, the only accessories Elsa had on were a pair of plain, brown boots – _Nobody_ is stupid enough to wear high heels into battle – and a black undershirt with matching pants. Her hands, of course, were left uncovered.

Elsa took a step back from her bedroom dresser so she could get a full-body view of her reflection.

"I look ridiculous," she said.

"You look _awesome___,__" said Anna, who was standing across from her. "You're just like Joan!"

"How do men wear these things?" Elsa gave her belt an irritable tug. "It's chafing me in places I _really_ don't want to be chafed."

"Did you find boots with thin soles like I said?" asked Anna.

Elsa groaned. "I doubt that will be necessary, Anna."

"You don't know that!" said Anna, her voice growing frantic. "Boots are like gloves for your feet, right? And they're a lot thicker than your high heels, so what if you need to shoot magic out your feet? You could lose the whole fight just because your stupid soles are too-"

"_Anna_." Elsa put her hands on her sister's shoulders. "I'm going to be _fine_."

"Yeah, yeah... I know that." Anna forced a smile. "You're gonna barge right in there and kick Brandr's butt." She turned for the door. "Now c'mon, I've _got_ to see the boys' reaction to you."

Elsa hid her face in her hands. "Does everyone really have to see me like this?"

"_Come_ _on_, Elsa, you look great! I wish I had one of those camera-thingies we saw at the art exhibit so I could take a picture..."

After some coaxing, Elsa was led downstairs, enduring the stares of passing staff members until the sisters reached the courtyard, where the boys, reindeer, and snowmen were waiting for them.

"Whoa! Elsa, you look... like a dude," said Kristoff, who immediately averted his eyes.

"Yeah, it's really... interesting," said Fritz, who seemed physically incapable of doing likewise. There were so many questions he'd never asked himself before this moment.

"I guess I'm ready," Elsa announced to the group. "By the time I return home, the faerie will be no more. Wish me luck." She hugged each of them in turn.

"G-Good luck." Fritz, of course, turned bright red as she put her arms around him.

"I hope you're feeling better after that frozen heart," Elsa murmured in his ear. "After everything's said and done, let's go out to town and do something together as friends, alright?"

"Yeah, that sounds great!" By now, the red had left Elsa's cheeks. Fritz had not been so lucky.

"Don't tell Anna. She'd accuse it of being a date again."

"Yeah! Anna sure is crazy to... to think something like that! Ha ha... ha..."

"Don't do anything reckless," Kristoff said as he received his hug. "Brandr's just a bully who's trying to tick you off."

"I know." Elsa even gave Sven a pat on the nose. A tiny one. Normally, she wouldn't have put her queenly hands on a pungent animal, but Elsa figured if she was going to engage in a life or death struggle against a supernatural monster, a little reindeer stench wasn't about to hurt her.

Next came Olaf's hug. "Don't worry about your brothers, little guy. I'll keep them safe."

"Are you sure you don't need my help again?" asked Olaf. "I bet I could melt this guy with a warm hug like Mary."

"Maybe next time," chuckled Elsa.

"Alrighty, then, I'll just hang out with my bestest friend Anders until you get back."

Next Elsa kissed the three larger snowmen on their noses. "Thank you for fighting alongside me. I won't let Brandr trap any of you again." The snowmen nodded their approval. Elsa also tried to kiss a couple snowbirds on their heads, but there were dozens of them and she didn't have all day.

Marshmallow met his older brother's coal-eyes, then knelt down. "Keep this safe." He gently removed the crown from his head and placed it on Olaf's.

"Wow! Thanks!" Olaf patted his new headgear affectionately. "Now I look pretty, just like you. Gee, first Elsa wears boy clothes, then I wear girl clothes... What a day for gender roles, right? Wait." His eyes widened. "Do snowmen _have_ genders?"

Now it was Anna's turn for a hug. But to Elsa's surprise, Anna hugged back and refused to let go.

"Anna-"

"Do you _have_ to go?"

That question was almost enough to make Elsa drop everything and vow to stay with Anna forever and never leave the castle ever again for the rest of their lives. But instead, she took a deep breath and gently removed Anna's arms from her neck. "Brandr preys on people like me. I want him gone. I want..." Elsa shut her eyes. "I want to make a world where little girls don't have to hide their sorcery." She took one last glance back at her family. "Goodbye. I love you. All of you."

And with that, Elsa waved an arm, causing a handful of her snowbirds to grow to monster-sized. They were large enough to easily fly Elsa and the snowmen off in their talons.

For a minute, Anna, Kristoff, and Fritz watched in solemn silence as Elsa and her snowmen grew smaller and smaller in the sky.

Then the silence was broken by Kristoff yelling, "_Olaf__! _Get your carrot out of there! That's gross!"

"But I'm just trying to-"

"Nobody wants to see an anatomically correct snowman!"

* * *

When Elsa had said she was one with the wind and sky, she was being figurative. If it hadn't been absolutely necessary to rescue Daniel quickly, Elsa would never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, _ever_ let herself be carried by giant snowbirds. Sure, the cold air felt nice, and the view probably would've been amazing had she been brave enough to open her eyes, but frankly, Elsa counted herself lucky that she managed to make it all the way to the North Mountain without hurling.

After several more minutes than Elsa would've liked, the snowbirds deposited Elsa and her snowmen at the foot of the mountain's icy staircase. She could see the Ice Palace from here, smooth and shiny against the rest of the mountainside. He was in there somewhere...

Elsa had never actually attacked someone before except in self-defense, but she supposed if she was going to start, a murderous otherworldly being wasn't the worst target to choose. But she wouldn't be reckless this time. Jumping in guns blazing had almost lost Elsa her sister when she'd fought Adrian, and it'd almost lost her her _own_ life when Brandr provoked her. Elsa threw out her arms. She couldn't just unleash the brunt of her powers on Brandr's head – It hadn't worked against Adrian, and it wouldn't work now. She had to _outsmart_ Brandr. She had to do something Brandr wouldn't expect.

And she was reasonably certain Brandr wasn't expecting her to send her snowmen crashing through the palace walls. There was a deafening crash as shards of ice tumbled down the mountainside.

Elsa couldn't help but wince. But she'd rather have her castle smashed to pieces than occupied by the faerie, and, besides, she could fix it later.

Elsa marched into the entrance hall across from the frozen fountain, standing side-by-side with her roaring snowmen. Sure enough, there was Brandr at the foot of the stairs, a big, smug grin on his face. All three snowmen opened their mouths, releasing blizzards that shook the building to its core.

"Oh," said Brandr mildly. "There you are."

The snowstorms had, of course, been drawn into the twin blades in his hands.

"_Love_ the new outfit, girlfriend!" Brandr said in the campest voice imaginable. "_Very_ butch. It suits you."

"Hello, Brandr." With a wave of her hands, Elsa called down the entire swarm of snowbirds from the brand new holes in the walls. They landed in a wide circle around Brandr, twisting and stretching into the same monstrous forms they'd used under Mary's command. "I'm giving you one chance to surrender. Let Daniel go, return to the otherworld, and never bother the mortal realm again."

"Wow, the rumors are true!" said Brandr, flourishing his swords. "The Snow Queen's as merciful as she is _stupid_. Typical cryomancer, making a big show of your ice-golems despite the fact that I have, y'know, _ice-eating swords_. You'd have better luck fighting me with _literally anything else_."

"Alright, you asked for it." The next instant, a jet stream of water burst from Elsa's hands. It crossed the room in a split second, but that was plenty of time for Brandr to dodge. He moved with inhuman speed, jumping upstairs without even slipping on the ice.

"Running away?" Elsa yelled after him.

"Just wanna take you on a tour of the place," Brandr called down to her. "It'd be a shame if you never got to see the renovations before your untimely death."

Some of the birds tried to lunge at him, but they were simply sucked into the swords. Elsa scowled, then ran after Brandr, her snowmen loyally following her. But as Elsa reached the top of the stairs, she gave a start. To the left of the balcony, there was now a door of ice.

_That_ hadn't been there before.

Elsa and her snowmen hesitated only a moment before following Brandr through – the archway was _just _big enough for Marshmallow to squeeze through. Now they were in a different room... A room larger than the whole Ice Palace. The walls, floor, and ceiling were still formed from ice, but other than that, this new area didn't have much in common with the palace. The Ice Palace didn't have quite so many floating, distorted eyeballs, for one thing. Also, its ice didn't give off a blood red glow, it didn't reek of sulfur, and there were definitely no dark, shifting shapes that vanished as soon as your eyes darted towards them.

"Whattya think?" Brandr was standing at the far end of the room, leaning against the skeleton of an enormous, winged creature with massive tusks. "I figured since this is _my_ Ice Palace now, I might as well add some homely touches. Don't worry, we're not in the real otherworld, just a teeny pocket dimension. You'd _know_ if we were in the real deal. Your puny mortal mind would've turned to noodles already."

Elsa immediately fired another water-blast at him, but Brandr once again effortlessly dodged.

"Hey, watch it!" The skeleton wobbled a bit, but Brandr straightened it out. "Do you know how rare ice-breathing dragons are? This one was just a baby. The grown-ups are _huge_." Elsa sent a whole ocean's worth of water his way, but Brandr didn't so much as get damp.

"It's one of the more impressive gems of my collection," he said absently, not even looking Elsa's way as he dodged. "Figured it'd make a good display for the entrance to the Museum of Me. Y'know, a little trophy room to my past victories."

"Where's Daniel?" demanded Elsa.

"Who, pretty boy? What if I told you I already gutted him like a fish?

Elsa's face contorted into a snarl.

"I had a feeling you'd be this stupid. I mean, you were already dumb enough to bring him out of your castle. Fair Folk can't enter a home without being invited!" Brandr laughed to himself. "Or maybe he _is_ still alive. But, y'know, I get the impression his life's been pretty terrible. Maybe he, unlike you, was smart enough to go to the otherworld voluntarily."

"It doesn't matter!" spat Elsa. "I'm ridding the world of you either way!"

"Ooh, who knew the pretty little lesbian orphan princess could be so _scary_?"

He was _trying_ to provoke her, Elsa reminded herself. She simply had to ignore the words, focus on the actions...

Elsa sent forth another tendril of water, which Brandr easily avoided. She couldn't use blunt force. She had _out-think _him.

This time, Elsa deliberately sent the water towards the dragon skeleton, blasting it apart.

"Oh, come on, that's just spiteful!" yelled Brandr.

This apparently angered him into launching a direct attack. He lunged at Elsa, but before his swords could reach her face, she threw a wall of water around herself. The faerie was sent tumbling backwards, the swords falling from his hands and skidding across the icy floor.

"Whoa! I almost drowned, but I didn't!" said Brandr, returning to his feet. "Brandr: one, Elsa's parents: zero!"

_Ignore him, ignore him, ignore him_.

Elsa tried to shoot water at the fallen blades, but before she could, Brandr reached into his coat and threw a pair of orange crystal arrows at Cloud and Cottonball like darts. Elsa destroyed the weapons in midair with her water, but this gave Brandr time to lunge at her again.

Brandr knocked Elsa off her feet, apparently settling for fisticuffs over retrieving his swords. He jabbed at her with inhuman speed, but Elsa impulsively formed an ice-helmet. It saved her skull from caving in, but Brandr's fist was strong enough to shatter the helmet, sending chunks of ice flying.

"You think you can take me just because you dress up like a soldier instead of a little girl?" laughed Brandr, raising his fist for another swing. "I'm a _Fae_, the greatest, bestest, most formidable supernatural force in this world or the- _Ack!_"

A big, icy fist wrapped around him. Brandr proceeded to be hammered into the ground a couple dozen times and then dropped face-up into the crater he'd formed.

"Puny Fae," growled Marshmallow.

Brandr made a low whimpering noise.

"That's my baby," grinned Elsa, returning to her feet. "Now, let's-"

But there was already a cloud of dark smoke forming by the fallen swords. A second later, yet another undamaged Brandr-body materialized and grabbed them. "How 'bout we go somewhere with no ice-golems allowed?" He dashed through a nearby door.

Elsa followed suit. This new room was a hallway too narrow for her snowmen to fit. What it _did_ contain, however, were several more "museum exhibits," mostly ice-statues lining the walls. There were also a couple items on display, such as a frost-covered, question-mark shaped wooden staff snapped cleanly in half, as well as what appeared to be the taxidermied carcass of large, apelike creature with white fur.

"Do you like Harold here?" asked Brandr, pointing to the creature with his sword. "Found him terrorizing some people in the Himalayas. Well, actually, he was minding his own business, but the mortals were terrified of him, and they paid good magic."

"So have you ever actually saved anyone from danger, or are _all_ your 'heroic' deeds faked?" asked Elsa tightly.

"What? Don't be silly. I've saved plenty of people from danger! What about the time I stopped the planet from being frozen by Mother Winter? Well, actually..." Brandr looked thoughtful. "Come to think of it, she probably wouldn't have tried to freeze the planet in the first place if I hadn't made that bargain with her..."

Elsa's eyes narrowed. "What bargain?"

"Oh, nothing, I just used some exact wording to make her think I would take away her curse and make her a normal person, and instead I absconded with her baby." Brandr snickered. "Man, did she ever fall for that one. But, hey, when my pals the changelings want a firstborn, they want a firstborn, and I forged a whole sword from all the hatred the mortals felt for her once Mother Dearest went all nutsy-cookoo."

"A firstborn?" Elsa's heart was already pumping from the heat of the battle, and this wasn't helping slow it. "You mean she _did_ give birth?"

"What? I dunno," said Brandr absently. "Coulda been adopted. She just had a baby with her, it had sorcery, the changelings wanted it, and the changelings took it. Though come to think of it, she _did_ have a thing for adopting as many kids with sorcery as she could get her hands on. Y'know what? Yeah, you're probably right, I doubt it was hers. I mean, I'm no biologist, but I'd have thought you cryomancer-types would just freeze the little fetuses to death before they could ever-"

He was interrupted by a pillar of water smashing into his face.

"Whoa! Watch it, lady!" Brandr was thrown backwards, overturning a pedestal and knocking off the pottery resting on it. He just barely managed to catch the vase – a faded orange one with black paint that depicted Brandr battling the gigantic, skeletal ice-creature from before.

"_You're nothing but a monster! An inhuman monster!_"

"Gee, took you long enough to notice." Suddenly, Brandr threw out his arms, causing more inky smoke to appear at his side. It solidified into a familiar form.

"Daniel!" Elsa ran towards him.

"Hup-up-up, let's not be hasty," said Brandr, pressing the violet and blue blades around Daniel's neck in a X-shape. "Let it never be said I'm above taking hostages. Whattya think of this little doohickey I've got him in?"

He was referring to the contraption binding Daniel's hands. It wasn't unlike the iron gauntlets Hans had used on Elsa, only made of the same violet crystal as Brandr's sword and with a thick collar around the neck, which a chain trailed off of like a leash.

"The absolute finest in sorcery-suppressing antimagic," Brandr said proudly. "So here's the deal: you keep whacking me with water, trying to smash my swords, and pretty boy's head comes off."

Elsa halted, scowling at him. "So I take it he didn't agree to go to the otherworld after all?"

"Nah. I was just messing with you," said Brandr. "He _will_ go there, though, just as soon as I decide which museum exhibit he belongs under. Normally I'd put him with the other live cryomancers here, but Danny boy is a little bit special..." He pointed with his eyes to the ice-statues lining the wall.

Elsa followed his gaze... and then her eyes widened. These weren't ice-statues at all. They were _people_ frozen in thin layers of ice, trapped forever with looks of terror on their faces. Some of their pupils even followed Elsa as she stared at them. There were so many of them... Beneath the ice, she could see people with eyes as blue as hers, all equally as beautiful. Some were children, some were elderly, some shared Elsa's fair skin and silvery hair, one was African, and one wasn't even human – It was a white wolf.

"They're all... _alive_?" Elsa had thought her heart was beating fast _before_.

"Depends on your definition of alive," shrugged Brandr. "Can you believe these dummies actually took my offer to waltz into the otherworld of their own free will? Ha! Fae _hate_ mortals! We don't care if they've got sorcery or not!"

"So that was a lie, too?"

"Hey, I never lie!" lied Brandr. "I gave these dummies _everything_ I promised them. Like I said, there's no death in the otherworld. Of course, there's no life either, but I forgot to mention that part to 'em. Oops."

"You said they were _happy_ in the otherworld!"

"For all I know, maybe they are," shrugged Brandr. "Anywho, how 'bout we get back to that bargain I offered you? You surrender, and I let your boyfriend here go."

"And you expect me to believe you?" said Elsa.

"Uh..." Brandr's eyes met the ceiling. "Y'know what? You're right. Guess I'll just go ahead and kill him-"

"_N__o__!_"

The blade halted millimeters from Daniel's neck. Brandr raised an eyebrow.

"I... I..." Suddenly, Elsa's head felt heavy. She couldn't just... let a defenseless boy die.

_I'd rather have you alive than Daniel._

The face of her sister flashed through Elsa's mind. But then... a little girl sitting under an oak tree at the top of a hill flashed through.

"I... I can't let..."

"Elsa." She was shaken out of it by the sound of Daniel's voice. He still had that defeated monotone. "The faerie has to die. Don't worry about me."

"But Daniel-"

"_Do it!_"

Elsa raised her hands, arms trembling. This couldn't be the answer... Brute force couldn't solve this...

"Go ahead, hit me with your best shot!" taunted Brandr. "I'll just dodge it and lob off Danny's head, snicker-snack. And then your pal will have died for nothing, kind of like your folks- _A__gh__!_"

Brandr was cut off by a jet of water striking him in the back of the neck. While he was busy talking, Elsa had ordered the water to snake around and hit him from behind. The faerie went flying, giving Elsa time to run over to Daniel.

"I've got you!" Elsa snapped open the gauntlets, which fortunately were easy to remove from the outside.

"Very clever." Daniel smiled at her. But then his eyes widened. "Elsa, behind you-!"

Brandr hit Elsa with a full-body tackle, sending them skidding down the hallway. The girl and Fae traveled quite a distance, tumbling past several more exhibits and what appeared to be a stable made of ice, where Olympus had been napping before all the commotion started.

"Do you have _any idea_ what a putz you are?" Brandr cackled, landing on top of Elsa. "Risking everything for _Daniel__?_"

Brandr raised his swords, but a quick water-blast threw him off of her. Elsa sprang to her feet, then jolted when she took in her surroundings. There were _corpses_ _everywhere_... Countless corpses with sickly blue skin and bony black fingers, frozen in feral positions, their bloodstained teeth bared.

"Don't worry, they're all dead. Well, they were already dead, but now they're deader," said Brandr. "Welcome to the Hall of Wights, the last leg of my museum! Yeah, that's right, I slay wights, too. Do you wanna know why?"

Elsa did not. As Brandr spoke, she shot out more water, finally succeeding in knocking the swords from his hands.

"This has gone on long enough." The twin swords rose into the air, covered in miniature whirlpools.

"Big mistake, orphan. The Fae law will mean squat to me if you break my swords." The next thing she knew, Brandr had grabbed Elsa's arms, pinning her to the floor. Her water flickered a bit before vanishing, releasing the swords, which clattered to the ground.

"I've killed every last one of your kind all over the globe!" sneered Brandr, his grip tightening. "Old Man Winter. Snegurochka. Khione. Vetr. Poli'ahu. Some people all you cryomancers, some call you Yuki-Onna, but you're all the same – You're the winter. And winter means death. And mortals will _always_ fear death. All I do is hunt the hunter. You've grown too powerful for the timid little mortals to accept, and now I'm the consequences of-"

"Brandr!"

"Whuh?" Brandr turned around just in time to see Daniel standing by the ice-stable, holding an icicle to the neck of a terrified horse.

"Hey! Leave my associate out of this!" yelled Brandr. "He's innocent!"

"Let it never be said I'm above taking hostages," said Daniel flatly.

It's hard to explain why exactly Brandr hesitated. The way of the Fae is mysterious, so who's to say if he felt some genuine affection for his steed or if in another second, Brandr would've let Olympus die. Either way, he was distracted long enough for Elsa to make her move.

Her arms were still restrained, so instead Elsa held out her feet and shot the magic straight through the thin soles of her boots. The liquid made a direct hit, shattering the violet blade into a million pieces.

"You're gonna regret that, little girl-" Brandr started to say, but the next instant, another jet of water hit the blue sword. The crack down the hilt finished its path down the rest of the blade, and it, too, shattered.

This jet hadn't come from Elsa, though. Daniel raised a hand, smirking.

Elsa blinked. The instant the second sword had shattered, Brandr had stumbled backwards, clutching his chest.

"No." There was no longer any trace of smugness or campness in his voice. "_No_, that's impossible. Nobody's ever broken the swords before!"

"What's wrong, Brandr?" Elsa rose to her feet and moved towards him. "Feeling a little upset? Powerless?"

Brandr's eyes narrowed. "I still have time to kill you, little girl-"

"Is that what you think about me?" Elsa spat. "That I've had an overabundance of power in my life? I've spent my life alone, hiding because I _knew_ people would be afraid of me. And after all my efforts to make people accept me, _you_ come along, prey on their fears, and then have the _gall_ to preach about how people will never accept me? You're nothing but an evil, murderous, hypocritical, _extremely_ _obnoxious_ liar. I'd thought I never wanted to hurt anyone with my powers, but I guess there's an exception to everything."

"You idiot!" yelled Brandr. "Daniel's playing you like a violin, you stupid little girl, and you don't even-"

But before he could finish raving, dark forms began to appear. It was the shifting shapes Elsa had seen before out of the corner of her eye, only now she could actually focus on them. They seemed to be dark, apelike figures, hunched over on all fours, featureless other than their feline, yellow-green eyes matching Brandr's own.

"Oh, uh, my pals!" Sweat was forming on Brandr's brow. "I'm glad you're here! You're just in time to watch me drain the magic from these cryomancers to further our wondrous agenda."

The changelings stepped towards him in unison.

"What?" Brandr seemed to be answering a voice only he could hear. "Yes, I _know_ that antimagic contract I made binds my soul to the swords. Of course I know that. I've, uh, got a spare sword. I left it in my other pants. Let me go get it, and I'll be right back to-" He tried to run for Olympus, but the horse turned away, flicking his tail and snorting at him. "Oh, c'mon, Olympus, not you, too!"

Elsa and Daniel traded confused glances.

"C'mon, guys, this is only a minor transgression!" said Brandr, his voice going higher. "I mean, it's not the kind of thing that gets you tortured for all eternity, right? Right?"

It was at this point that Brandr bolted for it, but he didn't get far before shadowy hands were clamping over his mouth and limbs, dragging him kicking and screaming towards one of the distorted eyeballs hovering at the back of the room.

"_No, wait, wait, __I__ can kill the Snow Queen! Her subjects are all terrified of her! Really! And Arendelle's probably cram-packed with other children with sorcery for you to abduct! Especially firstborns! You love firstborns, right?! __I__ just need more time! Just __gimme__ a little more time! Please, no- Hey, watch it, that hurts! Really, it hurts a lot! A whole l- AGH! Quit it! __I'm__ innocent! There's been a mistake! Don't put that there! It looks really sharp! Don't- __Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh__!_"

As the Fair Folk faded, Brandr's screams grew fainter and fainter until finally not even inky smoke was left.

Olympus let out a disappointed whinny. Where was he supposed to get sugar cubes _now?_

"Daniel!" Elsa threw her arms around the boy. "You made water!"

"All I had to do-" Daniel held out a palm and conjured another ice-rose. "-was focus on somebody I love."

"Daniel, I..." Elsa accepted the rose, smiling. "I was wrong about you. You saved my life."

"So you don't believe what the faerie said about me, then?"

"No, of course not. Practically every word out of Brandr's mouth was a lie." Elsa turned away, heading out the Hall of Wights and towards the door she'd come in from. "Now let's get out of here. I'm ready to go home and sleep for a _day_."

Olympus tried to let Elsa know that Daniel was putting on a very untrustworthy smirk behind her back, but he was a horse. There was only so much information he could communicate to the dumb humans.


	56. Don't Let Go

Three mugs rested on the dining hall table. One had been half-drunk by a weirdo who preferred carrots to hot chocolate, one was being refilled for the twenty-third time, and one was sitting unattended, waiting for its owner to return home.

"Elsa's fine," said Anna. "I bet she'll be back before her chocolate's even cold." She downed her drink in one gulp. "And, I mean, even if it does get cold, it's not gonna bother her anyways. Heck, she probably likes cold chocolate better, and there's no way Brandr would kill her because he's a complete jerkface and that wouldn't be fair and, like, is there no justice in the world?" She handed her mug to a nearby maid, who readily refilled it.

"I'm sure Elsa's fine," said Kristoff in the most confident voice he could muster. "It's only been half an hour."

Well, actually, given this guy had spent the past few millenia killing cryomancers for a living, Kristoff gave it a good chance they were in for some bad news, but he wasn't about to say that out loud. Or admit it to himself. Kristoff shut his eyes. He really, really, really, really, _really _didn't want Elsa to die, not the least of all because he didn't see a mourning Queen Anna leading the kingdom to great places.

_Don't even think that!_ he ordered himself. The last thing Anna needed right now was Kristoff's upbeat attitude.

"She's gonna be fine," he said aloud.

"Yeah, yeah... Fine," Anna repeated dully. She slurped up cup number twenty-four. "I mean, yeah, _of course_ she's gonna beat Brandr. Y'know what? I'm not even worried-"

"Your Highness?" The door crept open. "There's someone here to see you."

"_Is it Elsa we saved some hot chocolate for her!_" Scalding chocolate was sent flying every which way in Anna's scramble to reach the dining hall entrance.

But she gave a start when her eyes landed on her visitor. The woman the guard escorted into the room was not, in fact, Anna's sister.

"Hello again, Princess Anna." Mrs. Dale bowed her head shyly. She seemed to have aged years since the last time Anna saw her, which was only compounded by the dull, baggy dress she wore. "Emma's memorial is ready. I thought... you might want to come see it..." She glanced away. "I heard about your trouble with the Fair Folk. If now's a bad time..."

"No, no, now's a great time, actually."

Kristoff hadn't spoken much with either sister about this particular subject, so he wasn't exactly sure what Anna's feelings on the matter were, but he got a pretty good idea just by her face right now. It'd grown even more dejected than it'd been a minute ago.

"Let's go right now." Anna turned back to Kristoff. "Hold down the fort. If Elsa gets back before me, tell her she can have the rest of the chocolate. She's earned it."

"Are you sure you wanna go right now?" asked Kristoff. "I mean, you don't wanna wait for Elsa to get back?"

Anna took a quick breath, then turned back to the door. "Yeah, I'm sure. I need to take my mind off things."

And with that, the princess and widow walked down the hall together, Anna's voice growing fainter:

"You wouldn't believe all the crazy stuff that's been going on in our lives, Mrs. Dale. There's been a wight, a faerie, an evil snowwoman... I fought her myself! With a sword! It was the awesomest thing I've ever..."

* * *

The blood red glow, distorted eyeballs, and shadowy figures had vanished, and now there was nothing in the "museum" but plain ice and some overturned exhibits. A couple snowbirds fluttered around the ceiling – the last few prisoners to be freed from Brandr's swords.

Daniel overlooked the shards of purple and blue crystal scattered about the icy floor.

"Wonder how much magic is in these? The faerie drained Mother Winter moments before their mutual deaths... and who knows how many weaker cryomancers were targeted before that?" Daniel turned to Elsa. "All that magic can't just disappear. I don't think the faerie had time to bring it to the otherworld before we killed it. It's still in here."

"We'll bring the sword shards to Grand Pabbie." Elsa knelt down and conjured up an ice-crystal in her palm. When she held it near the shards, it stayed ice, but when she held it to the crystal gauntlets Daniel had been trapped in, the crystal melted into a miniature whirlpool. "And this contraption, too. It can probably be destroyed the same as Brandr's other weapons."

"Let's get out of here first before we worry about that," said Daniel. "Did the faerie leave behind anything else of note?"

"Only this guy." Olympus seemed a bit aloof towards Elsa at first, but he softened up to her once she gave his chin a good scratching. "He looks like one of Corona's palace horses." Elsa gestured to the sun insignia on his saddle. "We'll have to return him home."

Olympus gave a nod of approval. Now that she mentioned it, he _had_ been missing his identical twin brother a lot lately...

"Alright, then, come on." With a sweep of his hand, Daniel sent a gust of freezing wind to scoop up the antimagic gauntlets and sword shards.

They were about to head out the door, but then Elsa cried out, "Wait!" She ran over to the frozen cryomancers lining the walls. "These people are still alive!"

"Are you sure?" frowned Daniel.

"Yes, their eyes are following me. Look!" The cryomancer's eyes traced her pointer finger perfectly. "We have to free them!" Elsa threw out her arms and strained her forehead, but the icy coating around the prisoners was unchanged.

"Allow me." Daniel stepped forward. "One of the little tricks I've picked up is dissolving ice that's not mine." He threw out his own arms.

This time, there was a blinding flash of white light, and when it faded, the coatings of ice had vanished. And standing before Elsa and Daniel were countless men and women... People with pale skin, with silvery hair, and with deep, blue eyes fixed on the two of them.

Elsa's breath caught in her throat. "You're all... alive? You're really alive?"

The cryomancers remained silent. Each of them stepped back, clearing a path so one of them could walk to the front. It was a little girl, hardly older than four. Elsa would've thought the girl would look like herself as a child, but in fact, other than her hair, skin, and eye colors, the girl's face was totally different. It seemed softer, somehow.

But Elsa wasn't looking at her face. She was staring at her arms – or rather, the scarred stubs on her torso where arms were supposed to be. They stuck out from the torn fabric of the girl's plain cloth dress.

"You're..." Elsa started to open her mouth, but this didn't seem like the occasion for words.

The girl met Elsa's eyes, then smiled. Suddenly, her scars emitted the unmistakable glow of magic, and a moment later, ice was sprouting from them, forming into a pair of limbs. The little girl extended an icy palm. Next the magic sprouted from her ice-hand, creating a perfectly round snowball. She smiled again and handed it to Elsa.

Elsa accepted the gift, holding it to her chest like it was her life blood. "Thank you." Cautiously, as if she wasn't quite sure what she was doing herself, Elsa extended her own hand towards the girl.

But Elsa gave a start when it passed straight through.

"What?" She quickly withdrew her hand from the girl's insides. Usually, the cold didn't bother Elsa, but the empty air where the girl appeared to be standing was _freezing_.

The girl simply gave another, sadder smile.

"I don't think they're alive after all," said Daniel.

Elsa shut her eyes. She didn't know what she'd been thinking... That they could all stay with her? Join her family, maybe?

Elsa pressed her free hand to the snowball. _It_ felt solid enough.

"_Kree__?_"

She gave another start when the snowball made a noise like a baby cooing and then sprouted a pair of snow-legs, each only half the snowball's height. If they hadn't been magic, they would've collapsed under the weight. Elsa quickly held her palm out so the tiny thing could balance on its snow-feet.

"Oh, hello there." In response to her voice, the snowball nuzzled Elsa's fingers. She couldn't help but laugh. It was a little harder to stay upset now.

Elsa glanced back up at the cryomancers, but they were already fading. Now they looked less like a group of people and more like a big cloud of white smoke dispersing into the air.

Elsa took a deep breath and held the snowball close. She wasn't sure if she wanted to laugh or cry. In the end, she settled on calling out, "Goodbye!"

* * *

The palace carriage rolled to a halt at the foot of little hill overlooking the fjords. Honestly, Anna hadn't actually thought she'd ever come back to this place, but here she was. She climbed out the carriage, followed by the old woman.

"I've been staying with a friend," Mrs. Dale was saying. "It's too lonely here. I only ever come by to take care of Appelsin."

Anna nodded. To be honest, she was only half paying attention to the small talk. It was a little tricky to figure out what exactly to say around Mrs. Dale. Anna hated to be morbid, but, well, what else was there to talk about?

"Well... I guess that's it?"

Anna followed the woman to the top of the hill. There were various items scattered about the base of the oak: a doll, a portrait, a whole garden of flowers... Anna wondered idly whether _Adrian_ had gotten any kind of funeral, but, brash as she was, Anna was at least polite enough to keep that question to herself.

"This is... nice," Anna said lamely. "It's really nice. You're... lucky you've got such good friends."

Mrs. Dale caught sight of her face. "Is anything wrong?"

"No, no, it's just..." Anna let out a sigh. "Elsa went away somewhere, and I'm waiting for her to get back."

Mrs. Dale gave a sad smile. "Do you always get nervous when people travel?"

Anna tensed. "Well, Kristoff goes ice-cutting all the time – or, well, he _did_ before Elsa quit re-freezing the lake – and, y'know, ice harvesting's kind of a high-turnover job, if you know what I mean, 'cause you can never tell when the ice is gonna break on you or you get eaten by wolves or whatever, but..." She shut her eyes. "Kristoff's the best at it, so, I mean, I don't worry about him. Ever. Not even a tiny bit."

"I see." The smile slowly crept away. "But Princess Anna, you know it would be okay if you _were_ worried... just a tiny bit."

"Yeah." Anna turned her head away. "Yeah, I know... It's just... you can never _tell_. I mean, when bad stuff happens, it's not like you get a warning. You're just going about your business, having a totally normal day, and then... _bam._ Some servant comes up to you and just... drops a bomb. Life is crazy, right? So... what's the point of being scared all the time?"

There was a moment of silence as Mrs. Dale contemplated this.

"That's not how it was with Emma," she said. Her voice wasn't trembling, but it wasn't hollow either. "We both knew what was coming. Her illness had been getting worse for years, but Adrian refused to accept it. He kept insisting she'd get better, and then... when the winter came, it... it forced him to confront reality. Looking back, I wish I'd seen the signs... I wish I could have stopped him from-"

"_I'm really sorry to interrupt!_" Anna had gone nearly as pale as her sister. While Mrs. Dale had spoken, Anna had turned her head back to the oak tree, and now her eyes were fixed on something at the base. "Is that her?"

Mrs. Dale followed Anna's gaze to the portrait resting by a bouquet. "Yes. We had it made when she was seven. Why?"

"And, um, you said Emma was sick? Before the, uh, winter came through?"

Mrs. Dale stared at Anna, confused. "...Yes?"

"A big, mysterious illness the doctors could never figure out?" Anna's heart was beating almost as fast as her head was spinning. "What exactly were her symptoms?"

"Why? What's wrong?"

A trembling hand pointed to the portrait. All Anna could manage to say was, "Hair..."

"What? I _said_ her hair looked like yours-"

"_I thought you meant she had pigtails!_"

"Oh!" Mrs. Dale took a closer look over Anna's head. "Yours is gone." Now Mrs. Dale was _really_ confused. She glanced back at the picture lying by the tree – a perfect portrait of a beautiful little girl with flowing, ebony hair... save for the steak of white across her bangs.

"You said this was painted a year before the eternal winter?"

Mrs. Dale nodded.

"And what were the symptoms of Emma's illness?"

"Cold," said a disarmed Mrs. Dale. "She always complained she was cold. But I didn't think- Are- Are you saying this has something to do with the queen's magic?"

"Emma wasn't sick!" Anna's voice gripped by a mixture of excitement and horror. "She had a frozen heart! Or a frozen head! _Of course_ the doctors could never cure her. They didn't know about acts of true love and- and Grand Pabbie's memory-erase-thingy."

As far as Mrs. Dale could tell, Anna had just uttered a bunch of nonsense words. "You mean Emma was cursed?"

"Did Emma ever go near the castle?" asked Anna. "Was she around it the day she got sick?"

"No." Mrs. Dale was growing increasingly upset. "No, she never even laid eyes on the queen. The castle gates were closed before Emma was born."

"Right, and Elsa can't freeze people from far away. I mean, I don't think she can. When she does it, it's more like she throws out her hand, and _whoosh_, the magic shoots out and hits you." Anna got a bit carried away and mimed a demonstration. "And even if she could, why would Elsa's magic randomly hit Emma? And besides, Elsa was wearing gloves back then." Maybe it was a bit rude of her, but Anna couldn't help herself – She broke out into a gigantic smile. "Don't you see what this means?"

Mrs. Dale shook her head feebly.

"It means _Emma's death wasn't Elsa fault!_ Maybe the eternal winter was, like, a catalyst or something that made Emma freeze completely, but it probably would've happened eventually anyways. I mean, I don't know how Emma lived so long with a frozen heart in the first place, but-"

"Oh, Princess Anna, don't do this to yourself." Mrs. Dale put her hands on Anna's shoulders. "Please don't give yourself false hope. It _had_ to be the queen's fault. I was going to tell you before, but the queen flew off, and the next time we met, neither of you seemed like you wanted to dwell on it... See, by the time Adrian reached her... Emma's skin was ice. Her hair was white. There..." Her eyes clamped shut. "There wasn't anything to bury. Just the _shape_ of Emma in ice."

"But-"

"Don't you understand?" Mrs. Dale's tears were returning. "It _had_ to be the queen. I don't know how, but it was her. Who else could possibly have done it?"

* * *

Daniel watched intently as the cryomancer-spirits grew fainter and fainter. Unlike Elsa, he didn't appear to be moved. Just fascinated.

At first it seemed like he might simply watch in silence, but moments before the last specter vanished completely, Daniel waved a smooth, white hand and said, "_Au revoir_."

* * *

A morbidly obese reindeer was slumped across the kitchen floor, half-buried in an overturned basket of produce.

"Every. Single. Carrot." And standing across from him was one of the royal chefs, staring down a horrified mountain man. "There is not a single one left anywhere in the castle."

"I am _so _sorry! I didn't even know Sven could open doors! It's because carrots have gotten so expensive, and when he goes without 'em for too long, he has these crazy withdrawals and-"

"Kristoff, there you are!" The next thing he knew, the door swung open and Kristoff was being dragged out the kitchens by a princess who looked like she might explode any second now.

"Wha-? Anna, what are you doing? Why are you back so early-?"

"_Daniel killed Emma!_"

"Whoa, whoa, calm down!" said Kristoff, yanking himself free halfway down the hall. "Explain this to me slowly."

"_I was with Mrs. Dale and she had a painting of Emma from a year ago and in the painting Emma had a white streak in her hair and when __she__ died during the eternal winter she didn't just freeze to death like we'd thought because Mrs. Dale said Emma turned into an ice sculpture just like me so this proves Emma had a frozen heart or head or whichever and the eternal winter probably just set it off somehow and since Emma never met Elsa that means Elsa couldn't have done it and since Grand Pabbie said cryomancers are so super duper rare there's only one other person it could possibly be so Daniel killed Emma and he's evil just like I've been saying all along!_"

"You have a funny definition of 'slowly,' but okay." Kristoff held up his hands in a calming gesture. "I _think_ I follow all that. It's just – _wow –_ it's a lot to take in. Uh..." He shut his eyes, thinking as quickly as he could. "So you're saying Daniel froze Emma on purpose? Why would he do that?"

"Because he's nuts!" screamed Anna. "He was dropped on his head as a baby just like all the other jerks in the world! Do we really _care_ why? He's probably in cahoots with Brandr and as soon as Elsa rescues him, he'll double-cross her and get her killed-!"

"Anna, you're shouting at the top of your lungs!" Though, to be perfectly honest, Kristoff wasn't feeling his calmest anymore, either. "Take some deep breaths."

While Anna complied, he said, "Why would a cryomancer be on the same side as a guy who kills cryomancers? That doesn't make sense. Let's say Daniel really did kill Emma because he's crazy. He hasn't tried to kill any of us yet, so Elsa's probably going to get rid of Brandr, then bring Daniel back home, and we can warn her he's gone off the deep end."

"Yeah, I-" Anna took one last big gulp of air. "I guess you're right."

"And that's assuming he _is_ some kind of crazy murderer," added Kristoff. "I still stand by what I said – Daniel's got some major problems from being locked away, but that doesn't make him the next Hans. He couldn't control his powers before he came here, right? Maybe he froze Emma's heart by accident, and then he was too ashamed to tell us?"

Anna scowled and folded her arms. "I guess that would make sense, too... Fine, I'll go get proof." She made a sudden dash down the hall. "Come on!"

"What are you gonna do?" asked Kristoff, jogging after her.

"I'm gonna snoop through Daniel's stuff!"

A few minutes later, the two of them arrived in Daniel's bedroom, where Anna immediately yanked off the bedsheets and began a careful examination of the mattress.

"What are you hoping to find, exactly?"

"I don't know." After a couple seconds, Anna gave up and switched to going through the dresser drawers. "A written confession? A bloody knife? _Something_."

"I think you've been reading too many _Nansina Drude_ books..."

"Maybe there's something in Elsa's room!" Anna shot out the door.

Kristoff rolled his eyes and followed after her. He'd been maybe expecting to make a snarky comment about this. He definitely hadn't been expecting to hear Anna go, "Aha!"

"What is it?" Kristoff entered the room to find Anna triumphantly holding up an ice-vase.

"This was in my dream!"

And inside the ice-vase was an ice-rose.

"I don't see how a flower proves anything," said Kristoff flatly.

"There's something..." Anna paused, then got a far-off look about her eyes. "..._special_ about this thing." But the look faded as quickly as it'd come, and she was back to being a feisty-pants. "Kristoff, saddle up Sven and grab an ice chest."

"What? Why?"

"Because we don't want this thing to melt on the trip." Anna held the rose up before her face. "We're bringing it to Grand Pabbie."

* * *

Marshmallow, Cloud, Cottonball, and countless snowbirds were pacing back and forth by the overturned dragon skeleton, anxiously awaiting the return of their mama. Had they actually had lungs, they would've sighed in relief when Elsa came back out the icy door, followed by a couple snowbirds, Olympus, and Daniel, who was carrying the sword shards and gauntlets with his wind.

"Brandr is gone," Elsa announced proudly. "The threat's over. You can all return to living here at the Ice Palace. And look, you have a new cousin!" She placed the snowball on the ground. Though it lacked eyes, it apparently sensed the presence of its fellow snow-people and scurried over to them.

Daniel mumbled something under his breath, prompting Elsa to glance his way. "What's wrong?"

"I don't see why that child can make an ice-golem, but not me," he huffed.

"I think each cryomancer is a little different," said Elsa. "_You_ can do a lot of tricks that _I_ haven't figured out yet."

Daniel's expression was unchanged. He slinked out the door, continuing to mutter to himself.

Olympus made a disbelieving snort in Daniel's direction. In horse-language, it translated to, "_Somebody's_ horseshoes are screwed on too tight..."

After that, there was an exodus from Brandr's "otherworld pocket dimension." Curiously, the moment the last snowbird was out the door, the entrance vanished. It didn't fade away – It simply returned to being a solid wall of ice as soon as nobody was paying attention to it.

But Elsa hardly cared. Frankly, if she was never reminded of Brandr's existence again for the rest of her life, she'd be dwelling on him too much. She eagerly walked to the center of her Ice Palace, the place where, what felt like forever ago, she'd stomped her heel and made the giant snowflake that formed the base. Elsa looked over her palace and frowned. Her snowmen had taken some sizable chunks out of the walls, and there was still a lingering smell of tobacco and horse.

"Somebody told me this palace was a monument to my weakness." As Elsa spoke, she slipped the brown boots and men's stockings off her feet "And maybe he was right... _before_. But that's just what this palace _is –_ a monument. A symbol. And we get to decide what symbols mean." Next, off came the armor plate. "By repairing my Ice Palace, I want to make it represent what I always intended it to." Finally, Elsa let down her hair, letting it spill over the back of her neck unbraided. "Not my isolation, but my freedom."

A magical wave passed over Elsa, replacing her plain, black shirt-and-pants with her stunning ice-dress. Then, Elsa raised a bare foot into the air and stomped. Moments before it hit the ground, her high-heels formed, making a satisfying _thud_.

An even bigger wave crashed over the entire palace, and when the snowflakes and lightshow faded, the Ice Palace was pristine as the day it was made. Elsa's powers had removed all traces of the castle's former occupancy – even the smell, thank the lord. Elsa grinned to herself, and her snowmen seemed to share in her joy.

Daniel was grinning, too, but for a different reason. "You can't help yourself, can you, angel?" He stepped towards her. "Even in that armor, you were beautiful."

Daniel made an attempt to invade Elsa's personal space.

"_Stop it!_" Elsa backed off, her face tightening. "What are yoy doing? I told you, I'm not interested in that!"

"Don't you see, Elsa?" Here came attempt number two. "I love you. Why do you think I can control my powers now? Why do you think I could make water?"

Marshmallow noticed his mama's distress and went towards them, but Elsa called him off with a wave of her hand. "Daniel, I'm glad you've found some happiness in your life, but I just don't feel the same way about you."

Daniel's eyes narrowed. "But I saved your life!" he said, his voice raising.

"And you think that _entitles_ you to me?"

"I _know_ you feel the way I do!" spat Daniel. "We're connected. The only two people who can understand each other."

"That's not true, Daniel." Elsa made a conscious effort to widen the space between them. "I'm sorry, but you'll have to learn to deal with rejection, just like Fritz. _He's_ been willing to have a close relationship with me on my _own_ terms-"

"_How could you choose that runt over me? He's still a child!_"

"First off-" Elsa threw out her arms before Daniel could take another step forward. "-I didn't 'choose' _anybody_. I _don't_ have feelings for Fritz. Second off, he may not have sorcery, but that doesn't mean I can't empathize Fritz. You're not the only person in the world who's suffered hardships. The difference is, people like Fritz have been _humbled_ by them."

Daniel's hands were shaking. "_Don't you __dare__ compare my life to a __mortal's_."

"The reason Fritz and Kristoff have joined my family is because they're _kind_ and _caring._ When _they_ do good deeds, they don't expect anything in return."

"You said _I_ was your family!"

"I said you were _part_ of my family." Elsa wasn't one to raise her voice, even when she was furious, but Daniel was tempting her.

"How _on earth_ do you make yourself care about these fragile little mortals? Don't you see they're _beneath_ you?"

"I _love _them!" Elsa gave into temptation. "What's there to understand? Loving people is _human__!_"

"But you're _not_ human! You're a _god_ to these people, and they don't even respect you! You let these mortals lock you up for years because some ridiculous lie that you were one of them. All you had to do to escape was unleash your powers! And you know the real kicker, Elsa? You would've realized that, too, all on your own. Arendelle was freezing. You were putting everyone who'd ever hurt you in their place. And the only thing that held you back was your _idiot sister's slavish devotion to you__!_"

Elsa wasn't angry anymore. She was simply staring at Daniel like she was seeing him for the first time. "I see," she said quietly. "I think I understand now. Daniel, I will _never_ love you."

But Daniel just laughed, then turned his face away. "You know, I never _did_ tell you what exactly happened the day I ran away from home." He turned back to her, a smug little smirk playing across his face. "Want to find out?"

Elsa remained silent.

"I tried to escape with Olive," Daniel began, "but Father was waiting for me. And he wasn't happy..."

* * *

Eric's eyes were fixed on his reflection in the mirror, but what Eric was actually seeing was a four-year-old boy who was overjoyed to open the door for his big brother.

_Knock-knock, knock, knock-knock._

_Hey, Eric. You'll never guess what I've been up to._

The memories were, of course, juxtaposed by the faint sound of screaming from downstairs.

Eric forced himself to exit the washroom. His bedroom was immaculate and roughly three times the size of Daniel's. But the only thing in the room that had any value to Eric anymore was the musket proudly hanging on the wall. The one he'd had since he was six. This musket could hit a squirrel from miles away. It was a _real_ weapon, not like those flimsy crossbows some backward countries still used.

More screams reached Eric's ears through the walls.

Once you own a gun, everything changes. For most people, killing would be a hassle even if they wanted to. But for gun owners, killing would take about the same amount of effort it takes to point at something and scratch an inch. Eric could do it. One quick shot, and they'd be freed from the drunken shell of a man taking away Eric's one precious thing in the world.

But not everyone has the right mindset to take a life. Eric sat on his bed and listened to the screaming. He would've stayed there even after the screams finally died down, but at the last minute, they switched from the screams of a little boy to those of a grown man.

Heart racing, Eric grabbed the gun and dashed downstairs, keeping it level with his shoulder. Part of him didn't know what to expect. The other part of him knew _exactly_ what to expect.

Eric paused before the front doorway.

"I _had to_, Eric," said a quivering, barely audible voice. "I _had to_."

Not everyone has the right mindset to take a life. But sometimes they do it anyways.

"You're... master of the house now, Eric," Daniel said breathlessly. "I don't have to be... locked away anymore..."

Eric pointed the gun.

"No!" Daniel held up his hands, which had vapors fuming off them. Five hundred roses was his limit, but it only took a couple minutes to recharge. "No, Eric, I couldn't be locked away again! Please-"

Eric could already hear the footsteps of the mansion guards, and it didn't look like Daniel was planning on fleeing any time soon. Eric fired. The bullet whizzed right past Daniel's shoulder, but it was enough to spook him into running out the door. Eric watched him fly north, vanishing behind a thicket of trees.

A minute later, the guards arrived and noticed something sprawled across the floor. "Good God!" one cried out. "Did the boy's sorcery do this? The skin's completely black!"

Eric nodded feebly.

"Which way did he go?" demanded another guard.

"South," said Eric. "He went south, around the back of the mansion." The guards immediately made for the back door.

Eric took one last lingering glance towards the forest before joining them.

* * *

Daniel shivered. Cold. Middle of December. In nothing but his pajamas. People chasing him.

_Dead father. Gunfire._

He'd ended up at the bottom of a deep valley. Daniel didn't know how. Didn't know how long he'd run. But here he was. They wouldn't chase him down here.

Exhausted. But free. Free.

_Where's Olive?_

Free. Free free free free free.

_We can go back for her. Once they stop chasing us. Once it's safe._

Cold. Shivering. But free.

Daniel held out his hands and laughed. He could see his breath. Hands cold. But Daniel _was_ the cold. He made an ice crystal, then laughed again.

_Free. Free._

There was a tree nearby. Daniel pointed at it, and a bolt of frost erupted from his finger. It hit the trunk, chilling it to its core, so cold that the bark blackened and withered away.

_Just like father did._

A rabbit heard the commotion and darted out from a bush. Daniel pointed at it, and it, too, froze.

Daniel laughed again. He smashed his bare foot against the ground, causing all the grass in a wide circle of him to blacken. But he knew he could do more. Daniel threw out an arm. Every blade of dead grass was immediately covered in snow. Daniel laughed harder and harder, watching the snow's radius expand. But... but then the snow halted, and a sharp pain spasmed through his entire body.

_Agh! Weak! Weak! Tired._

Exhausted. Five hundred roses. His limit.

Daniel collapsed into the permafrost. He needed to sleep... Needed to... Daniel's eyelids were growing heavy.

And then the snow came.

Not his. Not anybody's. It was natural snow. A blizzard. Hadn't... Hadn't someone... said something to Daniel about this...? Daniel tried to think back, but the inside of his head was a blur. He shivered again.

Daniel opened his eyes. This was _thick _snow. He could barely see through it. Daniel looked at his own hands. Fingers blue. Daniel laughed again.

The snowflakes grew thicker. Hadn't... Hadn't someone... said something about... a blizzard? Hadn't... Hadn't... _Eric._

_He shot at me. Dead father. Oli- Cold. Cold. Cold._

Blood pounding in his ears. Sweating. It was cold, but he was sweating. Snow piling around him... Must be... a whole foot of it... His toes were blue, too. Cold. Snow was soft. Col-

_Burning! __You're burning__! __Fire__!_

Daniel ripped off his pajama shirt and let the howling wind carry it away. He laughed again and pressed his bare chest against the snow. That was better. But Daniel was still out in the open.

_People chasing you._

With the last reserves of his strength, Daniel lifted his head. There was a little overhanging where the rock was jutting out from the rest of the valley.

Daniel crawled inside, curled himself up, let the snow pile on top of him, and froze.

* * *

"You froze?" Elsa repeated in disbelief.

"Yes." Daniel took a step towards the crystal sword shards suspended in his wind. "I'm afraid my powers aren't strong enough to offer me the same protection from the cold as yours."

"But how did you survive?"

Daniel let out a chuckle. It wasn't mocking. He sounded genuinely amused.

"I didn't."

* * *

The storm raged for hours, but at some point in the night, the winds finally died down, and the snow blowing under the little overhanging settled. For a minute, there was stillness.

And then, from the powder, there erupted a set of bony, black fingers.

**HUNGRY.**


	57. Where's Olive?

He didn't know what day it was. Didn't know how long he'd wandered. All Daniel knew was that's he'd found it again. The mansion. His home. His former home, rather.

_Hungry_.

The voices were still there. He had to drown them out. Had to listen to his _own_ voice.

_So hungry. We'll die if we don't eat-_

_No_, he told himself. _We have to find her_.

The guards didn't see him. Daniel was lighter now. More limber. Without the restrictions of living muscle tissue, the winds could aid his movement, blowing Daniel like a ragdoll. Then, all Daniel had to do was freeze the tips of his blackened fingers and toes to the wall, and he could scale it in seconds. Soon enough, Daniel had slipped through the window and entered the bedroom.

The figure under the covers gave a start and immediately grabbed the musket resting above the covers.

"_Daniel_?" The boy moved into the moonlight. Eric's eyes went wide. "Dear lord. What _happened_ to you?"

Daniel took a step forward.

"You can't come back here," Eric said in a harsh whisper. "Daniel, you have to leave. Get as far away as you can! Father's men have finally given up searching for you. If they see you here, you're dead!"

"_I'm already dead_." The sound of Daniel's own voice surprised him. It was so _raspy_. "_You shot at me_."

"I was trying to get you to run!" The gun quivered in Eric's hands. "Daniel, you _murdered someone__!_"

"_You betrayed us. We would have escaped together._"

"You would have _killed her__!_" said Eric in the loudest voice he dared use. "Don't you see what you _are__? _You're no different from this gun."

"_I'm not a murderer!_" spat Daniel.

_Eat him! _said the voice in Daniel's head. _Eat him!_

"_Father__ was the monster! He deserved what he got!_"

"It doesn't matter." Eric bowed his head. "It's too late. There's nothing for you here anymore. Please, you have to forget about Olive. You have to run away. Go somewhere you won't hurt anybody."

"_I will not be alone again._"

"Daniel, you have to listen to me! You're my little brother. I love you."

Daniel extended his frostbitten fingers. Frost was fuming off of them. "_Liar_."

"_Not one more step, Daniel! I'm warning you!_"

Daniel let out a hiss, then lunged. There was a _bang_, but the bullet never left the barrel. It's hard for a gun to fire when it's coated in ice.

Eric's head slammed into the back wall. Bony black fingers wrapped around his neck, and the skin contact caused a violent shiver to seize Eric's entire body.

_Hungry! Eat him! Eat him!_

Daniel formed an icicle in his free hand and rested the tip between his brother's eyes.

"_Where's Olive?_"

* * *

"Where's Daniel?"

The ice-rose in Olive's hands had grown smaller and smaller until finally it was nothing but a little puddle, which she was frantically trying to keep from sloshing out of her palms every time the ship rocked. It was the last thing Daniel had given her before his father dragged him away.

"Olive, that boy is dangerous!" said her mother.

"I love him!"

"You're _sixteen_, Olive! You don't know what love is."

"Daniel would never hurt me!"

"Is that so? Show us your arm!" ordered her father.

Olive let out a huff, then reluctantly let the water spill so she could roll up her sleeve.

Her mother brought a hand to her mouth. "Oh God. It's _rotted._"

"It just got a little frozen," said Olive, immediately straightening the sleeve back. "It's already getting better. And it was an accident! You don't understand – The more I love him, the more Daniel can control his-"

"Daniel is dead!" snapped her father.

Olive's heart stopped. "What?"

"His father is a madman. He proudly announced his intentions to put down his own son. Sorcery or not, it's sick."

"No... No, he can't... He..." Olive buried her face in her hands.

While her mother did her best to console her, her father said, "Your life will go on without him. I want you to put this sorcerer boy out of your mind. That's why we're sailing somewhere where nothing like this will never happen again: Arendelle."

* * *

The instant Daniel started cackling like a maniac, Elsa surrounded him with enough icicles to leave him with more holes than corpse.

"So you're the wight?" said Elsa as her snowmen-and-birds moved to guard her. "How?"

Daniel grinned. "My poor, stupid little girl... Handed unlimited power on a silver platter, and you've never had the ingenuity to do anything with it." Suddenly, his voice sounded a lot raspier than it had a minute ago. "You think your magic is only useful for making _dresses__?_"

He held out a hand. Now that Elsa took a good look at it, the skin did seem a bit _too_ smooth and _too_ white... But then her eyes widened. It had started to peel back. And that's when Elsa realized it wasn't skin _at all_. Beneath the disintegrating ice-flesh was a set of bony, black fingers.

The change was happening over his entire body, turning the pale, flawless skin blotchy blue and brown like freezerburned meat. And it wasn't limited to skin, either. Daniel's platinum hair was replaced with something dull and greasy, his eyes lost their diamond-like shine, becoming hollowed-out with irises that might once have been a less grayish blue, and his teeth became yellow and red. Yellow from the decay, red from the stains.

Elsa hadn't noticed before when he'd been under that colorless cloak, but the wight was _young_. Now, with the silk pajamas on, he almost resembled a child. Even after watching the change from boy to wight, Elsa was having trouble making herself believe they were the same person.

"How are you still alive?" she asked.

"I'm _undead_, you idiot." Daniel reached for his buttons. "All you did was make me a lot lighter." He tossed his pajama shirt to the icy floor, revealing a set of large, circular holes across his shriveled torso. "You should've made sure I wasn't playing possum. Should've made sure there was nothing left of me."

"Trust me," said Elsa tightly, "I won't make that mistake again."

"It made my bones ache to hold back my magic for so long, but I knew it would pay off. You had no clue I shared your cryomancy, let alone that I could phase through your ice like a ghost. Escaping from being frozen solid was _easy_, and from there it was only a matter of following the river back to Arendelle, though I can't say I appreciated the swim. Getting wet makes my bones ache, too." He let out a chuckle. "Your little excision of my insides may have left me crippled and weak, but I knew I'd have plenty of time to rest once you took me in. I figured you'd welcome me with open arms so long as I didn't look like a frostbitten corpse."

"But how are you undead?"

"That's what the faerie was trying to tell you," said Daniel. "Sometimes a cryomancer dies when they _really _want to stay alive. And when a cryomancer wants something, their magic provides for them. They become wights. After all, if we can give life to our snow, what's stopping us from giving life to our corpses?"

"I see." Elsa scowled at him. "So what were you hoping to accomplish by pretending to be my friend?"

"Oh, my dear Elsa, I wasn't pretending anything." Daniel shot her another smirk, only it didn't seem quite as charming this time. "I never wanted us at each other's throats. I _told you_ the faerie was trying to turn us against each other. And I _told you_ we could kill It if we worked together, didn't I? Just think, if It hadn't turned you against me, our friendship could have lasted."

"I highly doubt that."

"But then you had to go and ruin everything by coming to my home, attacking me, and stealing my sword," said Daniel. "And I wasn't about to take that standing down, now was I? The only reason you even beat me is because I was holding back. I never wanted to kill you, Elsa. I wanted to see if _you_ would kill _me_. I knew you had it in you."

"You're an unrepentant murderer who tried to kill my sister," said Elsa. "Killing you doesn't prove anything about me. You forced my hand. _You're_ the murderer! And a cannibal!"

"I don't have much choice in the matter. See, unlike you, I don't have limitless magic. At some point, I'm bound to run out of energy, and the powers keeping my corpse going will fade. But every living creature's got at least a tiny bit of magic inside themselves, don't they? I simply have to take that magic from them and use it to fuel my own."

"So you kill others to keep yourself alive?"

"_Mortals_, Elsa! I kill _mortals_!" snapped Daniel. "The only reason you and I were locked away is because mortals are scared of us. _They_ want to kill _us –_ Why shouldn't we return the favor?"

"Because that's what _makes_ them scared of us."

"Don't preach to me, you pampered little brat!How would you know what people are like? How many people have you even _met__?_ Your sister?" He let out a bitter laugh. "I can't believe you let one idiot shape your entire world view. _I've_ been out in the world for _years_. The mortals _always_ hate me. And you think just because one naïve teenage girl loves you, that makes it all okay? It may have been on the wrong side, but the faerie was right about one thing – Magic and mortals can _never_ coexist. The only solution is to-"

"_Daniel_," Elsa interrupted in a loud, calm voice. He halted mid-rant. "Thank you for explaining who you are and where you came from, but I hope you haven't gotten the idea that I care about anything else you have to say. _You tried to kill my sister_." She pointed at him. "Marshmallow, tear his head off, please."

Marshmallow moved forward obediently, but Daniel simply laughed. "There you go again, my dear Elsa, relying on brute force to solve your problems. If you'd been paying more attention, maybe you could've prevented _this_."

The winds blew the floating shards of Brandr's swords into his hands. Elsa cried out and immediately shot a bolt of frost towards him, but Daniel blocked it with one of his own. Marshmallow also swung a colossal fist, but Daniel simply sent out a gust of freezing wind powerful enough to knock the snowman backwards.

"True, your magic is much stronger than mine." The crystal shards began to glow. "But let's see how it compares to Mother Winter's, shall we?"

* * *

There was no time. There were no days, months, or years. There was being hungry and not being hungry. There was finding secluded spots in the wilderness and freezing people there so they couldn't escape. There was hunting down little girls with curly blond hair. There was eating little girls with curly blond hair because they were _never_ Olive, and it made him _furious_.

All those – Months? Years? Decades? – ago, Eric had been unable to tell Daniel exactly where Olive's family had fled to. It'd taken everything Daniel had to keep himself from killing and eating his own brother, and then Daniel had been reduced to searching the globe blindly. But this time would be different. Daniel had finally hunted down enough of his dear departed father's goons, and he had finally learned the name of the place Olive had moved to: Arendelle. And after that, there was a boat ride where he stowed away beneath the deck, and here he was.

_We'll find Olive._

_Yes. And EAT her!_

_NO! We will love her._

_Crunch her!_

_Hold her._

_Hurt her!_

Daniel had found a secluded cave deep in the wilderness. A place where nobody would find him and chase him out with torches. _Home_. Daniel had taken some hay and spread it into two piles: one for him to sleep on, and one for Olive to sleep on.

And then it had simply been a matter of wandering through the capital town until he found her. Daniel had donned a gray cloak, covered himself in ice so he looked passably alive, and set to work. It had taken days. He'd had to stop several times to properly dispose of all the horrible imposters who looked vaguely like Olive but were not her. He'd been on the verge of giving up.

And then... there she was. Emerging from a book shop and onto the busy street. Her hair had lost its curls, and it was streaked with gray... and... and her face had more wrinkles than before, but... it was her. The same dimples. The same eyes. The same little laugh she made.

_Olive! Olive!_

**Hungry.**

_No! Not now! Olive!_

Daniel would've broken into a run, but he was too weak. Still, he crossed the street as quickly as he could, bridging the distance between them. He was getting closer... closer... just like he did when he was cornering prey...

**Hungry**_._

Closer... closer...

And then, as suddenly as Olive had appeared, another man emerged from the bookstore, took her hand, and quickly touched his lips to her own. They vanished into the crowd together.

After that, Daniel returned to his cave so he could send ice and hay flying in all directions.

* * *

Usually, Sven made a point not to travel long distances on a stomach full of carrots, but Kristoff had been insistent, so here he was. Anna and Kristoff dismounted their stinky steed and ran to the center of the Valley of the Living Rock. Curious trolls watched as they presented an ice chest to Grand Pabbie, who'd just barely managed to hobble himself out of his burrow.

"...been having these weird dreams lately, and this ice-rose was definitely in them," Anna was saying. "All I know is that Daniel's up to no good, and this proves it. Ooh, maybe I'm psychic?"

"I think I understand what's happening." Grand Pabbie held the rose up to his nose thanks to his failing eyesight. "Your Highness, did these dreams start before or after I restored your memories?"

"After," said Anna. "Why?"

"When I altered your mind, I removed your memory of _all _magic," said Grand Pabbie. "I'd assumed you'd never encountered any besides your sister's, but if what you're telling me is true, it appears there were other memories which I inadvertently removed as well."

"Aha! See, I'm not crazy!" Anna gave Kristoff a pointed look. "I'm just remembering something from a long time ago."

"Okay, but what does this mean about Daniel?" asked Kristoff. "How could he be an adult when Anna was a kid but still be the same age now?"

"I don't know." Grand Pabbie held the rose out before him. "But I _do_ know how we can find out. This rose has memories imprinted on it. I can sense them." He pointed a stony finger at Anna. "And I believe you sensed them as well."

"I did?"

"Yes. This is why you felt the rose was 'special.'"

Anna's face lit up. "Does that mean I can do magic?"

"Maybe with proper training," chuckled Grand Pabbie. "_Anyone_ can use memory-magic if they know what to do. I imagine you were simply more attuned to it due to my tampering with your memories. As I was saying, I believe this flower has some of Daniel's memories in it, much like Olaf held your childhood memories. In fact, perhaps _all_ snow and ice creations have some of their creator's memories in them, so long as they hold special significance to that person."

"Oh. So you're saying we can spy on Daniel's memories and see what he's up to?" said Anna.

Grand Pabbie nodded. "I don't trust this boy, either. The odds of two cryomancers being alive at once are too slim. Something is wrong." The old troll held out a hand and conjured a blue energy out of the flower. It floated above the crowd of trolls, humans, and reindeer, forming a "memory bubble" in the air, as if they were looking through a window into the past.

There were Elsa and Anna, two tiny children having a snowball fight in the castle garden in what looked like the middle of June... And then, a maid called them inside. Elsa scurried in obediently, but Anna lingered behind.

And that's when something cold hit her in the back of the neck. The little princess turned around to find a perfect rose of ice suspended in the air.

"Elsa?"

The rose darted into the trees, and Anna hurried after it. And that's when she saw the hooded figure, his fingers a little too smooth and too white. He smiled and conjured up another rose, blowing it towards Anna.

"You can do it, too? Wow, that's amazing! Just wait 'til I tell Elsa!"

"_No! Run __a__way! He's __e__vil!_" present-Anna screamed to past-Anna.

"Pretty sure you can't actually hear, uh, yourself," said Kristoff.

"_Shh_... Let's keep this _our secret_, alright?" Daniel murmured back inside the memory bubble.

"Okay! I'm great at keeping secrets! Like how I promised Elsa I wouldn't tell Mama how we snuck into the kitchen and ate that big tub of chocolate!"

Daniel patted her on the head, causing the young girl to shiver.

"Brr... Your hands are cold..."

"_You have a beautiful sister_."

"Eww! What a creeper!" yelled present-Anna. "Was I really this big an idiot back then?"

"Shh!" hissed Grand Pabbie. "Something's happening."

Sure enough, the memory bubble was wobbling and fading, and when it re-formed, Anna was still five, but now she was standing nearer to the castle, and she had an unmistakable streak of white in her hair.

"_Princess Anna... It's me._"

A gray, cloaked figure emerged from behind the trees. This time Anna let out a little scream and dashed inside.

"Good!" said present-Anna. "Sheesh, maybe when Elsa hit me in the head, she knocked some common sense into me."

"Mama, Mama, there was a weird guy outside the castle!" past-Anna was yelling. "You'd better go arrest him! I think he wants to a-duck me!"

And with that, the memory-bubble faded away.

"Okay, I admit it, Anna," sighed Kristoff. "You were right. About pretty much everything, by the looks of it."

"See? This is why you should listen to me. Sometimes I actually _don't _put my foot in my mouth."

* * *

A strange fervor had gripped Daniel as he'd stacked a new pile of hay in his cave – a much smaller one. He wasn't alone! He wasn't alone anymore! After finding Olive, he thought he'd had nothing, but he'd been wrong. This was a blessing! A miracle! He'd only investigated the castle when he'd heard all books on cryomancy were being confiscated and sent there. Never had Daniel imagined he'd stumble across a beautiful little girl having a snowball fight in the middle of summer.

After her sister had run away at his second approach, Daniel had grown suspicious and entered the castle unseen. Now he knew exactly how that little girl was being treated. Locked in her room. Isolated. They were the same. They needed each other. She needed him.

In the dead of night, Daniel had crept into the castle once again. He'd gotten pretty good at it by now. He was learning all the best places to hide, places people never thought to check. He'd found the beautiful little princess's window, and he'd frozen his fingertips and toes to the wall so he could watch her sleep until sunrise. He just needed to find the right opportunity, and soon enough the little hay pile would have an occupant.

He wasn't expecting to hear a knock at the girl's door.

"Elsa... It's me. I came to say... I'm sorry I tried to hug you... I won't do it again... Look, we don't have to do it now, but later we're gonna eat chocolate together, okay? And we'll play with our dolls but not my favorite one 'cause it's broken now and I'm sorry about that too and we'll be best buddies again and I still love you even if you don't love me okay and do you wanna build a snowman?"

There was silence. Daniel's ears perked up attentively.

He risked raising his head to the glass so he could watch the girl's reaction. She walked as close to the edge of the door as she could, took a deep breath, and said:

"Anna, I can't build a snowman right now. I'm sorry. But please don't ever think I don't love you."

"Oh." The voice from the other end sounded completely dumbfounded, as if it hadn't actually expected a reply. "Okay."

"I love you, Anna. We all do. Please don't be lonely."

"Okay, I..." The voice started to tremble the way small children's voices get when they're on the brink of tears – Daniel was well acquainted with the sound. "I love you, too. I'm gonna ask to build a snowman again next week, okay? Maybe you can do it then!"

"Anna, I don't-"

And then came the sound of little footsteps growing fainter.

After that, Daniel returned to his cave and stared at the little hay pile.

_I love you, Anna_, she's said.

_I love you, Anna._

_I love you, _**Anna**_._

Daniel smiled and shook his head. She was only a child, after all, and she was destined to share Daniel's fate. She would know better when she was older. And then she'd be his.

He could wait.

* * *

There was time again. Before, Daniel had had nothing, but now, on each return visit to watch his dear Elsa from afar, she was a tiny bit older. And so far, she was the only thing that had ever gone right in Daniel's life.

Over the years, he had stolen books from Arendelle castle's library. He'd learned that he was a wight, and he'd also learned that he was particularly weak for a cryomancer. He'd learned of Mother Winter and Brandr the Cryomancer-Slayer. The swords housing her magic had been of particular interest to Daniel, but thus far he'd been unsuccessful in locating the catacombs. He'd been searching since Elsa was little, and now she was even older than Olive had been the day they were separated.

Ah, yes... Olive. Elsa was not the only girl Daniel visited in secret. His heart belonged to the princess now, but sometimes, when he was particularly crazed from hunger, Daniel would sneak behind the trees at the edge of the fjords and watch Olive bustle about the little house she and... and _that_ _man_ shared.

Daniel felt nothing for her. Olive was dead to him, no different from Eric or Anna. They were _all_ liars. He only watched her from afar when he was very, very lonely. Sometimes he'd even wonder what her reaction would be if he revealed himself to her – disguised in his ice-flesh so he wouldn't terrify her, of course. He expected she'd hate him the same as the other mortals did.

What Daniel was not expecting was to return to Arendelle this time to find a tiny little toddler waddling along at Olive's side. A beautiful little girl with the same dimples, the same eyes, the same little laugh Olive made... but the hair was wrong. It was jet black. Not Olive's hair.

Daniel's eyes narrowed, and he almost gave away his position by growling. _That man's_ hair was jet black.

Now that Daniel thought about it... he'd waited a long time, and Elsa hadn't killed anyone with her powers yet. She hadn't even run away. It was like she was completely subservient to her captors. And, well, Daniel had never actually seen Elsa's parents beat her like his father had, but... but he knew it must happen. Daniel and Elsa were the same. The only two people in the world who understood one another. She was _his_.

And, well... Daniel had killed plenty of people. He'd been a murderer since the day he was born, whereas Elsa had lived her entire life... not knowing how it felt.

Daniel clenched his blackened fists. That didn't seem very fair, did it?

* * *

"Papa!"

The little girl was tickled until she couldn't breathe, then tucked under the covers.

"I love you," her papa murmured in her ear. "I love you _so much_."

"I love you, too, Papa."

"You're my little princess." He kissed her forehead. "And I love your mama, too. I was just angry. I'll neverhit her again, I promise. You know that, don't you?"

"I know, Papa."

"Alright. Goodnight."

The lamp was blown out, and the door creaked shut. Daniel waited until he could hear the steady rising and falling of the girl's chest before emerging. This was a brave girl. She hadn't thought to check under her bed for monsters.

Daniel gave one of his smug grins. Slowly, savoring every moment, he placed two fingertips to the girl's forehead. Then, he watched the streak of white form in her hair. It would be slower this way. Daniel kissed her forehead. He had to stop himself from laughing when she began to shiver.

Little girls were so beautiful, it was almost a shame they had to grow up. He liked children best.


	58. Defeat

Elsa was adamantly against hurting anyone with her powers, but she made an exception for insane undead monsters bent on murdering her and her family. As far as she was concerned, Daniel was no different than Brandr – maybe even a bit worse.

The point is, Elsa wasn't exactly debating philosophy with herself when she sent a blade of ice flying at Daniel's neck. Unfortunately, the attack never landed. It was blocked by a wall of ice that looked much bigger than five hundred roses.

"This feels _incredible_." What was left of the crystal swords faded to dust in Daniel's black fingers. "Is this what Mother Winter felt like? Is this what _you_ feel like every day of your life?" He began waving his arms around like mad, summoning ice-crystal after ice-crystal. Then, with another wave, they sharpened into icicles and shot towards Elsa.

It happened to fast, Elsa barely had time to flinch, let alone shield herself with ice. But luckily her snowbirds immediately dived in the way, catching the icicles in their stomachs.

"I'm not hungry anymore!" said Daniel, his voice shaking with glee. "I never have to worry about running out of energy again!"

"I'm so happy for you," Elsa deadpanned.

"I've been waiting _years_ for this! You wouldn't believe the frustration I've faced, my dear Elsa. Even when I finally found Brandr's catacombs, not only did I awaken the faerie, but I couldn't even get the magic out of the swords for my trouble! It was buried too deep in the blades for me to simply absorb the magic the way Mary absorbed yours. All the swords ended up being good for was evening Adrian's odds against you. At least until you showed me how to destroy them, my love."

"You're only hurting yourself, Daniel!" yelled Elsa. "If you couldn't control the powers you already had, what makes you think you can control my level of magic?"

"Oh, don't worry about me. All I need is enough control to do _this_."

Elsa dived out of the way just before another icicle could hit her. She replied in turn, but Daniel dodged even faster than she did.

"I really _did_ want to wear gloves, you know," said Daniel. "Not because I felt any remorse for killing these mortal worms, of course, but because I was trying to prove a point to you. Our powers are only good for _one thing_, Elsa. If you don't want to wear gloves, you'd better be prepared to hurt people."

Cloud and Cottonball lunged at him, but Daniel lazily flicked a finger and froze them from the waist down. The snowmen roared in frustration, but they were powerless to escape.

Elsa's pulse was pounding in her ears. Her thoughts had streamlined themselves: _Cut off his head. Burn the body. Don't rely on brute force. Be smart._

"Let's see if I can't figure out how to reinstate Arendelle's eternal winter." Daniel opened his black fingers and called forth a blizzard that rocked the entire Ice Palace, sending Olympus and the walking snowball fleeing for the door. The freezing wind didn't actually effect Elsa, but it did make it harder to focus. "Think you can give me any pointers?"

"You want my advice?" Elsa proceeded to say something that, had Anna been present, would've earned her another soap-mouthwash.

This was ridiculous. Elsa was _not_ about to let this ungodly brat beat her at her own game. She opened her own fingers and whipped up a much stronger snowstorm, sending Daniel off his feet and sailing across the room.

He smacked into the ground face-first and skidded across the ice-floor, but when he pulled himself back to his feet, his smug grin hadn't vanished. "Fine, I think we both know that you're stronger than me. But here's where you fall short, my dear, sweet Elsa – You've spent your life trying _not_ to use your powers, whereas I practiced every chance I got!"

While he was busy hearing himself talk, Elsa tried to send another ice-blade towards Daniel's neck, but moments before collision, he was suddenly sucked into the palace wall. He'd phased through the ice again, vanishing from sight.

Elsa took the chance to send out a blast of frost that freed her twin snowmen from their icy prisons, then had all three of them stand in defensive formation around her while the snowbirds flew above Elsa, protecting her head. Elsa didn't know where Daniel would strike next, but for some reason she was a bit paranoid about the chandelier falling on her.

But instead of an attack, Elsa was subjected to the sound of Daniel's raspy voice, echoing so much that it seemed to come from all around her. "It truly is a shame you're resisting me like this, my Elsa. We're the same. I know you hear the voices, just as I do."

"What are you talking about?"

"You're not even a wight yet, and already you've started to hear them. What do you think Mary was?"

"Mary said _you_ did something to her!" said Elsa. "She never would've gone mad if it wasn't for you!"

The disembodied voice laughed. "I only sped up the inevitable. All I did was give her some of my own voices. You see, I've created other personalities, just as you have. I can implant their minds into preexisting ice-golems like poor Mary, but I've never been powerful enough to give them bodies of their own. Until now."

A bolt of frost shot from a dark spot on the ice-wall and summoned a large, snowy cloud. The frost twisted and solidified until it'd taken the shape of three monstrous, canine creatures. They knelt down on all fours, baring their icicle teeth and claws. Marshmallow, Cloud, and Cottonball replied by brandishing their own icicles and crouching into fighting stances.

The largest of Daniel's snow-monsters opened its mouth and released a feral roar. "**HUNGRY!"**

"_Kill them_," hissed the second.

"_Cut them_," hissed the third.

All three pounced at once, going for the snowmen's jugulars. The snowbirds tried to help the snowmen throw them off, but their pecks had little impact on the beasts.

Elsa took some deep breaths, forcing herself to focus. There had to be a way out of this. If she didn't act fast, Arendelle could be buried in snow again. _There could be another Emma_.

No, no, she couldn't afford to think that right now. There were too many things happening at once. Elsa had to simplify... Well, her snowmen seemed to be losing the fight against Daniel's. She could withdraw them so they wouldn't get in the-

Wait. Oh, of course, now Elsa knew what to do! With a quick wave of her hand, Elsa sent out a wordless order to her snowmen and snowbirds to evacuate the palace and wait by the icy staircase (which Olympus was trying in vain to traverse without slipping so he could get the heck out of here). With them gone, Daniel's monsters immediately turned their attention to Elsa. Elsa braced herself, and then, right when they lunged, she stomped a heel against the ground.

In a split second, the entire Ice Palace vanished. Elsa readily caught herself with a quickly-conjured mound of snow, but Daniel's monsters weren't so prepared. They were sent tumbling off the mountainside, splattering against the cold, hard ground miles below.

She'd rebuild the palace again when this was over, Elsa promised herself. With that taken care of, she shot her head around, frantically searching for the Wight. He had nowhere else to hide...

Elsa was hoping she'd caught Daniel off guard and maybe broken all the bones in his body from the fall, but, of course, it couldn't be that easy. The sound of cold laughter send her head upwards. There was Daniel, suspended in the air above her, his hair and pajama pants billowing in the wind. Apparently, he could use that wind trick to levitate _himself_, too.

"What a view!" said Daniel, overlooking at the landscape below. "I can't wait to see it all painted white!

Elsa scowled, then fired a wave of magic at him. The two traded more blows, sending bolt after bolt of frost at each other in rapid succession, but not a single hit reached its target.

"Must this really end with us killing each other?" Daniel taunted as he swerved around another ice-scythe.

"You brought this on yourself!" Elsa raised her hands above her head, causing her dress, cape, and braid to flap faster and faster in the storm winds. "You want me to use my powers for death, Daniel? Well, _here you go!_"

She let him have it. The big one. Every single snowstorm from the violent blizzards of the north to the continent-spanning climates of unforgiving ice from billions of years ago, all the freezing wind that ever was and ever will be, every last tundra, glacier, snowflake, _all of it_ was called towards one compact, person-sized target. And here Daniel was without any ice-eating swords. He came very, very, _very_ close to absolute zero.

Daniel smashed against the very tip of the North Mountain. Elsa dashed to his side and quickly cased his entire body in a thick layer of ice. After that, she finally allowed herself to drop her guard and take some steady breaths. That... That wasn't so hard.

"Were you not paying attention?" But then came the sound of maniacal laughter to remind Elsa it was _always _hard. A bony, black hand emerged from the frost as if it was liquid. The next instant, Daniel was standing before the big hunk of ice, laughing his head off.

Elsa's eyes fell on the holes in his torso, which were now filled with ice. Daniel noticed them, too, and absently sent out a small flash of light to dissolve it.

"My poor Elsa." A smirk crossed his face. "No matter how hard you try, you just can't get creative enough." He lunged like a snake. The next thing Elsa knew, she was knocked into the crunchy snow, a set of bony black fingers wrapped around your neck. Elsa's brain immediately ordered her to breathe and made the unpleasant discovery that she couldn't.

"Give up, my sweet little Elsa," said Daniel, his grip tightening. "Give up now and I'll let you stay alive. You're much too pretty to become a wight, and I'm not sure you have the willpower for it, anyways..."

Elsa was seeing spots again... but this wasn't the first time this had happened. Choke her to death once, shame on you. Choke her to death twice...

Elsa readily sent out another stream of frost... and this time she aimed for the holes in Daniel's torso. He was blasted backwards, landing belly-up in the snow and writhing from the undoubtedly unpleasant sensation of ice crawling through his insides.

"Look at that." Elsa returned to her feet, gasping for air. "Turns out you can't phase through ice that's inside of you. Creative enough for you, Daniel?"

Daniel made a faint gurgling noise, his eyes wide with pain.

Elsa turned back towards the mountainside. One of her snowmen was already coming towards her. "Marshmallow, perfect. Could you finish tearing Daniel's head off? I know it's a grisly, but there's no other way to-"

"**HUNGRY!**"

_Thwack._ A colossal snow-fist socked Elsa at full force, leaving her seeing stars.

"Wha-? Marshmallow, why-?"

The last things Elsa saw as her vision faded were the snowman disappearing, a flash of light, and Daniel standing above her, the ice in his torso-holes gone. "Oh, my poor, sweet Elsa, that was unfair of me, wasn't it? All my talk of creativity, only to beat you by making an exact copy of your snowman. You poor thing..."

And then the world went black.

* * *

The world gradually faded from black to white. It took Elsa a moment to realize she was staring at the snow-covered peak of the North Mountain. She immediately tried to turn her head only to discover that she couldn't. There was something around her neck... and... and something binding her hands. _Oh God._

It was the same contraption Brandr has trapped Daniel in. That was right – Daniel had made sure to bring them out of Brandr's museum. He'd _planned _this! Elsa tried to make ice, but these things weren't the same as the gauntlets Hans had trapped her in. There'd be no overpowering them, apparently. Elsa even tried to make water, but the antimagic blocked her magic completely. It was useless. Elsa was reduced to struggling against the crystal chains with nothing but her nonexistent muscular strength.

"Don't be scared, my sweet little girl," said a voice Elsa was growing _very_ sick of hearing. "I won't hurt you. Well, actually I will, but it'll be for your own good."

A bony, black hand placed itself over Elsa's shoulders. She was turned so she could meet the dead, sunken eyes of the frostbitten corpse standing before her. Behind him, Elsa could make out the forms of her snowmen and snowbirds, all imprisoned in ice and struggling in just as much vain as Elsa was.

The skeletal hand stoked Elsa's chin. Elsa shivered – which wasn't a sensation she felt often. When she'd first seen him, Elsa had said the wight looked pathetic, not frightening. He hadn't scared her at all.

Currently, Elsa was... reevaluating that assessment.

"You don't even realize how beautiful you are, my Elsa." Daniel drew his face closer to hers.

Elsa spat as hard as she could. Daniel stumbled backwards, hissing and clawing at his face. The spit, apparently, had frozen in his eye.

"Very cute," said Daniel, clearing it away with another small flash of white light. "I don't mind you giving me a bit of attitude, my dear Elsa. It adds to your charm. Even when you hurt me, I still love you more than anything. I just wish you'd realize what you've done to me." He took a step towards her. "I may be undead, but that doesn't mean I can't feel pain. When you stabbed me with those icicles, well..." He held out his hands. "...it felt a little like _this_."

Elsa shut her eyes and, she was sad to admit, let out a scream, but when she opened them, the icicles had stopped an inch from her stomach.

"Got you." Daniel burst out laughing. "Don't worry, angel, I would never tarnish your beauty like that. I just like watching you squirm. It's almost enough to make me hungry, and I don't even _get_ hungry anymore..."

"Maybe you were a helpless victim once, but now you're nothing but a monster," said Elsa. "You're no different than your father."

For an instant, Daniel's eyes widened, but he quickly regained his composure. He chuckled to himself. "I'll let you off with a warning for that one, my dear Elsa, but I'll teach you not to insult me. Maybe, each time you displease me, I'll hurt your sister, just a little bit at a time, until you've straightened out."

Elsa's breath caught in her throat. "Daniel, it's... it's not too late for you," she found herself saying. "Please! You can... You can repent! And then... maybe you could be part of my family after all. It... doesn't have to end this way..." Elsa's voice sounded so much _higher_ than usual...

Daniel let out a heartier laugh. "Ooh, I _like _hearing you beg. I wonder what else I can get you to say before the night's over?" He held out a decayed palm, conjuring up an ice-rose. "I tried to do things your way. I really did, Elsa. But it's too late now. You said it yourself – You will _never_ love me."

"What are you going to do?" The last few traces of defiance had left Elsa's voice. Suddenly, she was a terrified eight-year-old again.

"It's clear to me that my worst enemy's influence has been ingrained far too deeply into your psyche for me to ever fix it on my own," said Daniel. "When I returned to Arendelle with swords in hand, the faerie in pursuit, and saw your eternal winter, I was delighted. You were finally walking the same path I'd walked, all those years ago... so imagine how I felt when, before I could find you, the snow vanished."

Daniel leaned in until their noses were almost touching.

"Anna has fed you a very big lie, Elsa. And despite my best efforts to show you the truth, you refuse to listen. It's time for drastic action. I will _make_ you see the truth. I will _fix _you."

With a wave of his arms, Daniel summoned his snow-monsters to him. Then, with another wave, each of them sprouted a pair of icy, bat-like wings. Now they resembled giant, snowy gargoyles.

"**HUNGRY! HUNGRY!**" the lead one shrieked.

"Don't worry, my child..." Daniel stroked its back affectionately. "You'll have your pound of flesh soon enough." He turned back to the imprisoned Elsa. "You know, if it wasn't for you, my dear Elsa, I'd be at the end of my rope right now. Fresh out of ideas on how to make you see the truth. So, my sweet little girl, I have to thank you. I'd always wondered how Anna manged to avoid freezing to death. I never would've suspected there was a colony of trolls in Arendelle."

Elsa's eyebrows raised. "_What_-_?_"

The next thing she knew, a gust of wind was lifting Elsa off her feet, chains and all. Daniel followed her into the air, accompanied by his snow-monsters.

* * *

Marshmallow, Cloud, Cottonball, and the snowbirds watched in horror as their mama grew fainter and fainter on the horizon.

"_Kree_?" A tiny little snowball with legs peeked out from its hiding place behind Marshmallow's frozen torso. "_Kree_, _kree_, _kree_...?"

It was hard to tell given its lack of a face, but the snowball was on the brink of tears.


	59. God Save the Queen

"_Get up_, you stupid, stinky-!" A feisty princess tried to pull a protesting reindeer to his feet, but Sven simply flopped back down in the dirt and let out a groan.

"Anna, even if Sven wasn't sick at his stomach, there's no way we could make it to the North Mountain in time," said Kristoff. "I'm sorry, but there's nothing we can do."

"There _has_ to be _something__!_" Anna turned to Grand Pabbie, who'd joined Sven in resting on the ground. "Can't you use your magic to help?"

"I'm only a healer," said Grand Pabbie. "I'm sorry, Your Highness, but all we can do is wait and pray your sister returns to us."

"Well... maybe Elsa beat Brandr and she's back at the castle already." Anna made another unsuccessful attempt to return Sven to his feet- err, hooves. "C'mon, Kristoff, she's probably wondering where we went. And the longer we wait, the longer Elsa lets that evil brat stick around."

"Oh, princess, I _hope_ you're not talking about _me_."

And that's when a raspy voice sent goosebumps down Anna's neck. Her head shot skywards. "_This_ can't be good."

"_Salut_, Princess Anna! How wonderful to see you here!" A familiar face fell out of the sky and landed smack in the center of the Valley of the Living Rock. With that smug grin and those pajama pants, there was no mistaking him for Daniel, that is if someone had left Daniel in the freezer for too long. "This is _too_ perfect. Everyone's gathered into one convenient place. Saves me the trouble of hunting you down."

Anna's eyes fell on his stiff, black fingers. "Oh my God! You're... You're the wight!" Anna drew closer to Kristoff. "Where's Elsa?"

"Don't you worry, she's safe and sound." Daniel snapped his fingers, causing the winds to gently deposit Elsa beside him. Anna didn't know what those weird crystal handcuffs Elsa was trapped in were, exactly, but she had a feeling they weren't good news.

"_Anna, __run__!_" Elsa immediately screamed.

"Uh uh uh." But with another snap of his fingers, Daniel sent down his trio of snow-gargoyles. They landed in a circle around the crowd of trolls and roared, blasting freezing wind from their mouths.

"**HUNGRY!**"

"_Kill Anna!_"

"_She's a liar!_"

There was screaming across the valley. Some trolls curled themselves into boulders while others tried to flee, but a moment later, the entire area was surrounded by a thick wall of ice.

"What's wrong, trolls? Don't you recognize me?" Ice trailed up Daniel's face, leaving it half-covered. Now a couple splotches and the left eye were shiny and white, while the rest of his head stayed blotchy blue and brown.

Anna gave Kristoff a pleading look, but he had no clue what to do, either. All the girl, boy, and reindeer could do was huddle closer to each other.

"I _love_ having all this power," said Daniel. "I think I finally understand how my dear Elsa felt when she took off her gloves." Suddenly, he stomped his foot on the ground, coating the entire floor of the area in ice. Next, Daniel threw his hands into the air, causing both the floor and walls to rise, twisting and growing until everyone in the valley was standing inside the enormous interior of Daniel's very own Ice Palace.

"What do you think, my lovely?" With her hands bound, Elsa was powerless to stop Daniel from stroking her neck. "A bit cruder than yours, but it'll do for now. And look, I can even make the rest of the valley match!"

Everyone cried out in horror as the ice trailed off the sides of the castle, covering every last leaf and blade of grass in snow. Even the steam-spewing vents were frozen over. And the ice didn't stop there. It crawled over the _people_, too. There was nowhere to run. Every man, woman, reindeer, and troll found themselves trapped from the waist down in ice.

"_What are you doing? Are you __nuts__?_" Kristoff struggled as hard as he could, but he was stuck tight.

Daniel ignored him, instead walking towards the princess. Anna gave him her strongest death glare.

"You have _no idea_ how long I've waited for this day." He brought his hand to Anna's chin. Anna had shivered before when the wight had touched her, but not like _this_. Her vision nearly went white, and when it came back into focus, the sound of her own screams was ringing through Anna's ears. Both Elsa and Kristoff were staring at her, horrified.

"Tell me-" Anna tried to sound defiant, but her voice wasn't cooperating with her. "Tell me my hair's not white again."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Daniel chuckled. "_I'm_ not the one who's going to kill you..."

"Ugh, I should have _known_ you were the wight!" said Anna. "That's why you were the same age when I was a kid!"

"Ah, yes, I'm pleased you remember our meeting," said Daniel. "I'd never understood why you suddenly forgot about me."

"So you've known about me for years?" said Elsa.

"That's not all!" yelled Anna. "He _killed Emma!_"

Elsa looked like she might die of shock. "W-What?"

"Oh, you naughty girl!" A big, bloodstained grin crossed Daniel's face. "Had to go and spoil my secret! Yes, dear Elsa, _I_ killed poor little Emma."

In less trying circumstances, Elsa might have been relieved. "Why?" she asked, disbelief gripping her voice.

"Because you wouldn't do it!" snapped Daniel. "You'd gone years without harming a soul! Try and see things from my perspective, dear Elsa. I didn't know about that little ordeal with your sister's frozen head. I thought you'd never even hurt anyone, thought you didn't realize the true nature of your magic. I had to do something, you understand. But like I told you, I can't freeze people quite as quickly as you."

He met Elsa's eyes. "I had to freeze Emma slowly. From the inside-out." Elsa was trembling, breathing heavily. "I _do_ have to thank your eternal winter for jump-starting the process, though. All that icy magic dumped over Arendelle must have caused the ice in poor little Emma's frozen head to speed up and finally finish her off. It was worth the wait, though. Who knew all those years of agony would drive my pal Adrian mad? And since my own cryomancy was a well-kept secret, who else was anyone supposed to assume had killed her?" He laughed.

"Do you have _any_ _idea_ what you did to me?" Elsa's voice was totally level and calm. And angrier than the loudest yelling could ever hope to be. "And all because you couldn't stand to see someone who wasn't as miserable as _you__?_"

"We've talked in circles about this," said Daniel. "I've told you, your purpose is to kill, and if you won't realize that on your own, then I have to give you a nudge in the right direction."

"So then who does that make the liar, Daniel? Anna or _you__?_"

"I'm showing you the world for what it truly is!" Daniel snapped. "You and I are the same! The difference is, when I was isolated from the world, I had what it took to free myself and realize the truth. And the only reason you don't is because of your precious Anna. None of your other citizens accept you, as Adrian and Brandr have proven. It's only her... and _me_. _Worst enemies_."

His eyes moved from the queen to the princess. "And if Elsa and I are the same, that means _you_ are the same as _Eric_. But I can understand why Eric turned his back on me – He was securing his own future. But what I'd never understood is why _you_ would throw yourself in the way of a sword... why you would sacrifice your own life for the sister who'd shut you out and frozen your heart. And now that I've had the chance to meet you in person, Anna, I finally know the answer..."

He paused inches from her face. "And the answer is _not even you yourself know why you did it! You're nothing but a dog loyal to it's master!_"

Elsa and Kristoff cried out as they watched Daniel strike Anna _hard_ across the face.

"And I see now that your hold on your sister is so great that I can never break it on my own," said Daniel. "Which is why Grand Pabbie is going to do it for me."

"_What?_" There was blood pooling on Anna's lip, but with her hands frozen, she had to let it drip down her chin. "How's Grand Pabbie supposed to do anything?"

"Funny you should ask that, given it was his altering of _your_ mind that inspired me." Daniel waved a hand, freeing the old troll from his ice. "See, Pabbie here has the power to make someone forget things that really happened... and remember things that haven't."

Elsa's eyes widened. "You want to change my memories?"

"Ooh, you catch on fast, my dear Elsa." Daniel stepped back so he could address all of his frozen prisoners at once. "Once Grand Pabbie has let me have my way with your mind, you'll finally accept the truth, and then, with our combined magic, we'll recreate the eternal winter, with its power multiplied a hundredfold. We won't just stop at Arendelle. We'll freeze the entire planet! And then there will be nothing left but _us –_ the only two people who understand each other, the only two people who _need_ each other – along with our creations from the ice and snow. We'll tear down the world that rejected us and build a new one that bends to _our_ whims. We will never again be hurt. Never again be betrayed. Never again be isolated. And before age can sap your beauty, I'll kill you so you can return as an immortal wight. We'll be two perfect creatures: The Snow Queen and her Snow King."

Anna's heart was racing. There had to be a way out of this... Had to be something they'd overlooked...

"One flaw in that plan," said Kristoff, scowling. "Why would Grand Pabbie help you?"

"Let's let the troll speak for himself, shall we?" Daniel watched smugly as Grand Pabbie slowly, achingly pulled himself to his feet.

"Wha... What will you do if I don't help you?" he asked in a trembling voice.

"Oh, just what you'd expect."

Every last troll in the Ice Palace screamed in agony as ice crept over their mouths, down their throats, into their eyes...

"Pabbie, no, you can't-" Kristoff tried to protest, but the next instant, the mouths of all Daniel's prisoners were covered in ice, leaving only Grand Pabbie's and Elsa's uncovered. Even Sven's snout was frozen shut.

"Daniel, you have to stop this!" said Grand Pabbie. "Please, senseless murder will not bring you want you want! True love is putting the needs of others before-"

"Start with the children," Daniel ordered his snow-monsters. "Their skin's probably softer."

"**HUNGRY!"**

"_I'll do it__!_"

The beasts paused with their icicle jaws half-shut around the frozen troll-infants.

"God forgive me, I'll do it." Grand Pabbie's eyes were watering.

"Pabbie, I..." Elsa looked from him to Anna.

Anna didn't _get_ scared. Even when she'd been kidnapped by Adrian, she'd still had a certain feistiness about her. And so it was doubly upsetting for her to suddenly feel sheer, blind _panic_. This was worse than a monster trying to eat her... worse than a sociopath locking her in a room so she could freeze to death... This was literally the end of the world!

"That's what I like to hear." The snow-monsters pulled back. "That means you trolls get to live another day."

Grand Pabbie hobbled over to Elsa, not meeting her eyes, and feebly raised his arms. "Which memories do you want altered?"

"Which memories?" Daniel repeated, laughing. "All of them, of course."

Elsa shut her eyes. "Pabbie, _please_... please don't do this..."

"I'm sorry, Elsa. I have no choice."

Elsa stayed silent.

Grand Pabbie let out a deep sigh, then brought his hands to Elsa's forehead. He pulled back, yanking out a swirl of blue light. A second later, the light shot across the room, and Daniel's Ice Palace was filled with color. Countless memory bubbles floated about, weaving in and out between the frozen prisoners. Anna stared at one, transfixed. Her heart pumped faster. Inside the bubble was two little girls building a snowman together...

A symphony of disjointed sounds filled the room.

"_I love you, Els_-"

"_Do you wanna build a-"_

"_Hi, I'm Olaf, and I like_-"

And the sound of the memories was nearly drowned out by the sound of Daniel's gleeful cackles. "It's all here. My dear Elsa's entire mind, _begging_ to be molded."

Elsa had opened her eyes, and now she was staring at the memory bubbles the way a patient stares at their own insides on the operating table.

"And... what do you want changed about them, exactly?" Grand Pabbie asked, voice shaking.

"That should be simple enough." Daniel eyed a bubble that depicted a young Elsa standing with her parents and sister beneath a Christmas tree. "Just take anything that looks too happy and _erase it_." He slashed his frostbitten fingernails through the bubble, causing it to scatter and reform elsewhere.

"I can't," said Grand Pabbie. "The memory has to be replaced with a similar copy. Otherwise the subject will go mad."

The shambling undead corpse gave him a glare that said, "Do I look like the kind of person who cares about that?"

"You don't want her _mad__!_" Grand Pabbie said more forcefully. "You want her to share your viewpoints on life, correct?"

"Hmm..." Daniel looked thoughtful for a moment. Then his eyes fell on a set of bubbles hovering in the corner of the room. "I've got it. Replace them with _these_."

These bubbles showed a cloud of white spreading over Arendelle, the king swinging a sword at his own daughter, Adrian's fingers blackening...

"Her nightmares?" Grand Pabbie brought a hand to his temple. "It would still be a great strain on her sanity-"

"Hmm, it's a shame the baby trolls are so small. My snow-children will need to eat a lot of them to satisfy their hunger."

Grand Pabbie hurriedly set to work.

* * *

It occurred to Elsa that when Anna had had her memories altered, she'd been unconscious. She hadn't gotten to _watch_. Elsa squirmed against her chains. She could feel her magic aching for release, but the antimagic gauntlets sealed it in completely. Elsa looked from Anna to Kristoff, who could do nothing but watch helplessly, their protests muffled by the ice over their mouths.

Elsa was so frantic, she was getting this ridiculous idea that maybe if she concentrated hard enough, her memories wouldn't change. She could _see_ the memory bubbles, couldn't she? She _knew _she was about to be given fake memories. She had to focus! She would never help Daniel freeze the planet! Never-

Daniel pointed to the image of a little girl cradling her cold sister in her arms on the ballroom floor, her parents watching in horror. Grand Pabbie obediently waved a hand, transforming the image so that Anna was even colder and stiffer, Elsa was sobbing even harder, and her father was drawing his sword.

No! No! Elsa knew that memory was fake! What had really happened was... was...

The altered bubble floated back into the group. There were _so many_ of them... Elsa lost track... And before she could find the altered bubble with her eyes, Daniel had already pointed to the image of Elsa and Anna baking cookies and replaced it with one of Elsa sitting in her room alone.

Elsa could feel her mind changing inside her skull. She had to _focus. _These depressing memories were obviously fake. Elsa _knew_ her parents loved her. They'd never – _Hugging her father became her father striking her across the fac_e – They'd never beaten Elsa! These fake memories were ridiculous! They'd never locked Elsa away for years! Or made her wear gloves!

No, wait, that last one was real. And so was... the one before that... and... Wait...

Daniel was nearly out of his mind with joy. "This one! Do this one next! Make it so the sword kills her!"

"I already gave her the memory of Anna dying as a child!" said Grand Pabbie. "She can't die _twice._"

"_I gave you a direct order, troll._"

Elsa's eyes clamped shut. The image of a dead sister on the ballroom floor flashed before her eyes...and then... and then came the image of a sword striking her down on the frozen harbor. Grand Pabbie was right, Anna couldn't die twice. She'd only died once. But... which one had it been?

The bubbles changed faster and faster and faster, and each time, the original good memories and the new bad memories grew less and less related. Flying through the clouds with her sister in her arms became the wight's fingers on her throat. Sneaking into the kitchen to eat chocolate in the dead of night became her mother screaming at her.

Some of the memories didn't even change. Elsa sitting before a mirror stayed the same... So did Elsa freezing a fountain as a horrified crowd watched... and standing before an oak tree as an old woman said something in a soft, grave voice... and Elsa impaling Prince Hans with her ice. No, that one was fake! And so was... No, that wasn't right... The bubbles were shifting so quickly, Elsa could hardly tell where the originals ended and the new ones began.

The memory of a lumpy-headed snowman vanished entirely, but nothing came to replace it.

"We're out of nightmares," said Grand Pabbie. "Daniel, this is more than enough. We should stop while she still has some shred of reason in her-"

"Enough?" Daniel let out another laugh. "We've hardly even begun!" He pointed to one of the smaller bubbles. "Look at this one – Her mother cradling her in her arms. _I_ was never given that memory. Why should she have it?"

"But that's from when she was an infant! She can hardly even remember it anym-"

"_I said replace it._" Daniel tapped his own forehead. "If we're out of nightmares, give her some of _my_ memories. Make sure she gets all the important ones." He knelt down so Grand Pabbie could reluctantly draw the blue light from his forehead.

A new group of bubbles joined the flood of them streaming through the palace. A boy firing a gun... Snow piling higher and higher...

Elsa struggled against her chains again, but it was futile as always. Then she let out a gasp. One of the changing memories... _wasn't_ unpleasant. That was such a strange sensation to Elsa at this point, she almost didn't recognize the feeling...

_Elsa was standing beneath a windowsill, struggling to stand on her tippy toes so she could peer at the little boy inside._

"_I didn't know there were any weird boys in this house," said Elsa._

"_And I didn't know there were any pretty girls at the edge of the woods, but here we are."_

Elsa screamed. This wasn't real! Daniel was a murderer! He'd tried to kill her sist... her si... He'd tried to kill somebody! Elsa had only meant to scream once, but somehow she found herself shrieking a second time... and then a third time... and...

Grand Pabbie stopped to give her a concerned look. "Daniel, this is too much for her."

"_We're not stopping until every last warm memory is out of her skull!_" spat Daniel. "_I don't want her so much as remembering the taste of chocolate! We'll see how high and mighty she acts when she's been through what I went through!_"

Building a palace of ice became freezing in a blizzard, the snow piling over her. "Do you wanna build a snowman?" became dead silence.

Finally, Elsa's throat gave out, and she was left panting. She opened her eyes again... and found a girl with red pigtails trapped in ice, staring at her, horrified, and struggling just as hard as Olive – _Elsa, __h__er name was Elsa –_ was. That... was... her... sis... ter...

"Anna," Elsa said hoarsely. "Help me." Her cheeks felt wet. "Help me, Anna-"

The girl with red pigtails fought desperately against the ice holding her.

"_Shut up!_" A black hand left Elsa's face stinging. "You shouldn't even remember her name anymore!" Daniel turned to Grand Pabbie. "Troll, remove every last trace of this brat. Don't bother replacing the memories with anything. Elsa can be an only child for all I care."

"Elsa's already mad!" yelled Grand Pabbie. "You'll just make her incoherent!"

Daniel turned to his snow-monsters. "Take a bite out of a couple troll-children."

"_No, no! I'm doing it! I'm erasing the memories of Anna!_"

A wave of light crashed over every last bubble.

Elsa found herself shrieking again, thrashing wildly against her chains. "_Help me! Somebody help me! An... na... Help me..._" More screaming. "_Mama! Papa!_"

After a minute, every last trace of a feisty, pigtail-wearing little girl had faded entirely from the bubbles. It was at this point that the screaming finally stopped, as did the struggling against the chains. Queen El... Queen... She _was_ a queen, wasn't she? The... The queen bowed her head, sitting is silence as memory after memory slipped away.

* * *

A lumpy-headed snowman hopped onto the infirmary bed so he could sit on Anders's lap.

"Hi, Anders! My brothers left to help Elsa deal with a fairy for something, so I guess I'll hang out with you."

"Oh, yes, Olaf. Nice to see you."

That was weird. Usually, Olaf's bestest friend in the whole world met his arrival with sarcasm and disdain. And maybe it was just Olaf's imagination, but... did Anders have a far-off look in his eyes?

"What's wrong?" frowned the snowman.

"Oh, nothing, nothing..." Anders rolled over under the covers, hiding himself from sight. "I've just been... thinking about death a little too much lately, that's all..."

"Death?" Olaf looked blank.

Anders nodded. "Yes. It's... It's something that happens to... to every living thing, eventually. I guess, after a while, we all just... run out of life. And then we leave this world. Forever."

Forever? Olaf had never really thought about that before... The snowmen gave this idea some careful consideration. "You mean like what would happen if I melted?"

Anders let out a chuckle. "Maybe. I'm not sure snowmen _can_ die. Maybe... once Elsa does... Happens to everyone, really... Happened to my brother... and to John..."

A thought struck Olaf. "Oh! Is that why we never see Elsa and Anna's mama and papa around anymore?"

"Yes. Them too." Anders voice sounded funny, all of a sudden. "You never know exactly when it's going to... to happen... Olaf, I was... I was mean to them. Just before they left. The last thing I ever told them was... was that I wasn't their friend anymore."

"But you _are_ their friend!" said Olaf.

There was silence, save for the soft sound of sniffling.

"Know what you need...?" Olaf only had so many responses to this type of situation. He put his twigs around the old man's torso. But this time, Olaf was in for a surprise – Anders hugged back. Warm hugs were the best!

"I love you, Olaf."

"And I love you too, _of course! _You're my best buddy."

"You know what?" Anders let out a little laugh. "Some people think... when we die... we get to keep living... in another world... a better world... forever. And... I'd never thought that was true, but..." Another laugh. Or maybe it was a sob. Olaf couldn't really tell. "...but there was a time I didn't believe in little girls with magical ice powers or... or talking snowmen, either."

"Hey, Anders," spoke up Olaf. "I hope people don't really go away forever when they die. That way you can be my bestest friend for-"

Olaf went still. Then, his misshapen head tumbled off his body and splattered against the floor. The universe had suddenly realized that it was way too top-heavy, and there was no reason the body ought to support the weight. It wasn't like there was any magic holding the snow together or anything.

"Olaf? _Olaf?_"

* * *

Daniel couldn't stop laughing, even as the last of the bubbles faded away.

"She's perfect," he said. "She's _perfect._"

Elsa seemed to respond to the sound of his voice. She raised her head and opened her eyes. "Daniel...?" she said faintly.

"Shh... Get some rest, my dear Elsa..." The girl allowed Daniel to run his hands down her back. They weren't bony and black anymore – Daniel had re-covered himself with ice-flesh so that he looked his best for his big moment. "All we need now are the finishing touches."

Daniel's hands glowed, and the next instant, Elsa's outfit transformed into a darker, sleeker dress that showed off much more than a leg. Next Daniel ran his fingers through her unbraided hair, forming a crown of jagged icicles on the top of Elsa's head. Daniel even gave himself a matching cloak and crown of ice.

"There we go," he said, kissing her forehead. "Now, there's one last loose end to deal with." He turned to Grand Pabbie. "We need to make sure Elsa's change is _permanent_. It would be a true shame if her memories were restored the way Princess Anna's were."

The old troll's eyes went wide. He took a step back. "Daniel, I'll neverrestore her memories, I swear!"

"Oh, don't worry, Grand Pabbie. I know you won't." Daniel looked to his snow-monsters. "I believe one of you has been complaining about being hungry?"

Grand Pabbie tried to run, but there was nowhere to go, and he was nearly crippled with age anyways.

"**HUNGRY!**"

Old age also makes a troll's stony flesh a bit softer. And chewier.

Every last prisoner cried out in horror, their screams muffled by the ice over their mouths. Even Sven brayed frantically.

"The first of many." Daniel shot out a burst of water, shattering the restraints around Elsa's hands and neck. "And I've already got a candidate in mind for the second." He held out a smooth, white hand. The Snow Queen accepted it and gently rose to her feet to stand beside her king.

"Daniel," she repeated.

"That's right, love," said Daniel. "Only I love you. Everyone else wants to hurt you and lie to you. But we won't let them. I've fixed you. And now, to make sure you're _completely_ fixed, I need you to kill this girl." He waved a hand, freeing Anna from her restraints. "Make sure she can never lie to you again."

The instant the ice vanished from her face, Anna cried out, "Elsa, don't listen to him! Daniel did something to your head! _He's_ your enemy! I'm your sister! I love you!"

Elsa looked confused. She turned to Daniel expectantly.

"She'll keep lying to her last breath," said Daniel. "But I want her mouth freed while you kill her. I want to hear her beg. I want to hear her last words on her dying breath."

Elsa's eyes fell on her sister, who was huddled on the icy floor, shivering.

"What are you waiting for?" said Daniel. "She's just a mortal brat. A fraction of your power should be more than enough to end her."

Next, Elsa's eyes fell on the Snow King. For a minute, she hesitated. "Daniel..." Then she let out a pleased hum and wrapped her arms around him.

"Oh, I see." A smirk crossed Daniel's face. "Can't keep yourself off of me?"

"Eww! Elsa, don't do it!" yelled Anna. "He's a _corpse__!_"

It was too late. Elsa pressed her lips against Daniel's own. After several seconds, Elsa pulled away, grinning from ear to ear.

Daniel returned the expression. "I've been dreaming of that for _years_-" But suddenly, he gagged. "What?" Daniel stepped backwards, clutching his throat. "What did you-?"

Daniel's jaw was forced open, giving a clear view of the ice running over his tongue, crawling down his esophagus... Daniel let out a shriek and held his hands to his eyes. Little specks of ice were coming out from beneath the fingernails.

"What did you do? _What did you do__?_" Beneath his shirt, the holes in Daniel's torso were being filled in. "But... But you love me! You love-" He couldn't finish that sentence because the next second, every inch of empty space in his mouth was crammed with ice.

Elsa watched the wight flail around in a blind panic. Her grin remained constant.

A moment later, ice spewed out of Daniel's eyes, ears, and nostrils. He tipped over, twitched around on the floor for a bit, then went rigid. His snow-monsters crumbled into shapeless snow as the universe suddenly realized they were top-heavy.

"You got him!" Anna let out a cheer. "Oh, _thank God_, I should have known you were just _pretending_ to like that freak. Oh _man_, you had me going there, Elsa! I thought having your memories erased had made you go crazy or something! Ha! Boy, what a load off my..."

Her voice trailed off as the Snow Queen slowly turned towards her. Elsa's grin had vanished.

"Um, Elsa...?"

The Snow Queen raised an arm. There was nothing particularly sisterly or loving in her eyes.

"Elsa, wait, it's _me_-"

**End of Part Three**


	60. Back to Square One

One minute, Arendelle was suffering from a scorching drought. People were going around with the absolute bare minimum required clothing, fanning themselves, and producing enough sweat to replenish Arendelle's dwindling water supply. The next minute, they were under six feet of snow and counting. There was a collective groan from the populace of, "Not again!" The thawing of Mrs. Gudmund's butcher shop was set back another couple weeks. Wandering Oaken's Trading Post and Sauna proudly announced "the Big Winter Blowout," a massive sale on its overstocked winter department (A lesson had been learned).

And, a couple miles offshore, the guards on an island were watching the radius of frozen ocean grow wider and wider.

"The ice didn't extend that far last time," said a guard. "What do we do?"

"Only one thing we can do," said his coworker. "We can't let all of them freeze to death."

The pair of guards reluctantly entered the massive, stone structure occupying the bulk of the island. The interior was packed to the brim with cells, alongside a wide selection of uncouth-looking gentlemen behind iron bars. There were big, bald men with hairy arms, a tall, broad-shouldered man giving all the other prisoners judgmental glares, and a man with ridiculously enormous sideburns and a face so gorgeous you couldn't help but want to knock his teeth out.

"Oh, look, the serving boys are here," the gorgeous man said dryly. "What are we having for breakfast today, you depressing testaments to the state of humanity, the colorless slop or the slightly green slop?"

The guards ignored him. "The winter shows no signs of stopping, and it's coming this way fast!" one of them announced to the chamber. A roar broke out from the prisoners.

"I knew it!" the broad-shouldered man yelled, his voice mixing with the others. "I _told_ _you_ the queen was a devil spawn! And now God is punishing us all!"

"It's because she's a gay witch freak!" yelled a lumpy-headed old lady. "Gay witch freaks control the weather!"

"_Q__uiet, all of you!_" The head guard's voice reverberated around the chamber. "Seeing as this is a joint prison between the two nations, you're all being transported to the Southern Isles' penitentiary. We pray the queen's winter won't extend that far. Now, if you're not keen on freezing to death, I suggest you march onto the prison ships in an orderly fashion."

"Oh dear, the queen's going to freeze everybody to death?" said the sideburn-wearing pretty boy. "If only someone had had the common sense to run her through with a sword."

"Will you shut up?" spat a guard.

After that, the prisoners were brought out of their cells one-by-one and marched towards the island docks. The guards released every last thug and ruffian, until finally they reached the ex-Admiral's cell. After that, there was just the empty cell being saved for the peddler's inevitable return, leaving the pretty boy as the very last prisoner.

The guards made for the exit.

"Aren't you dolts forgetting someone?" he yelled after them.

One of the guards turned back around to scowl at him. "Gee, sorry, Your Highness, but we don't have any room for you aboard. Somebody had to draw the short straw."

The prisoner's eyes narrowed. "My brothers will be hearing about this."

"I'm shaking in my boots."

Just then, another guard entered the room hauling an enormous barrel of fruit. "Hey, guys, what should we do with all this extra food?"

"Eh, stick it in the spare ship's quarters."

"_Spare ship's quarters?_" yelled the prisoner.

The guard scowled at him again. "Pardon, Your Highness, I must not have made myself clear. We don't have any room _for you_ aboard."

The prisoner used language not becoming of royalty.

"Yeah, your ego would take up the whole ship," snorted the other guard as the procession exited the prison. "Y'know, some prisoners are actually _nice_ to us. Did you know Greg wants to be an algebra professor?"

The guards all gave one last wave. "Goodbye, Prince Hans! Have fun starving or freezing, whichever comes first!" And with that, the door slammed shut.

Prince Hans let out an indignant huff, then folded his arms and planted his butt on the damp cell floor, grumbling to himself. This was so unfair... He outta be ruling Arendelle right now... Someday he was gonna bust out of here and plan his revenge, and _that would show them__!_ Maybe one of the sisters would visit him in prison and find him strangely alluring, and he would seduce her with his charms and earn his redemption and freedom... Yeah, that's probably what was gonna happen.

Hans stared at the mold on the wall. There was total silence in the prison, save for the occasional drip of water.

Yep. Aaaaaaaaaany day now.

* * *

Deep in the snow-covered forests of Arendelle, there lied a valley that had never seen snow before now, which was kind of a rare thing in this country. But now, even its thermal vents were caked in ice.

The moonlight illuminated a structure towering high above the trees: an ice palace, not unlike the one that had once been on the North Mountain, only more twisted and jagged. From the outside, you'd think this was the abode of some terrifying ruler of the ice and snow, and, well, you'd be exactly right. What you might not be able to tell is that this castle also contained a stiff, frostbitten corpse wrapped in a thin layer of icy skin, adorned in dark ice-robes and a crown of icicles. The palace also held countless trolls, a human male, and a panicked reindeer all trapped from the neck down in ice, as well as the twitching form of an elderly troll jutting out from a shapeless pile of snow that had once been a trio of vicious snow-monsters.

And at the head of it all, a red-haired girl was on her knees at the foot of a looming woman with flowing, blonde hair and a crown and dress matching the corpse's, though her dress wasn't quite as baggy and conservative as his robes. The Snow Queen had raised an arm into the air, icy fumes trailing off her fingertips. The fumes looked cold as the ends of the earth. Her eyes looked colder.

The girl said, "Elsa, wait, it's _me_-" and then there was a flash of magic and the girl screamed.

There was a blinding light, and the next thing Anna knew, the floor was gone and everybody was tumbling downwards – a crazy mix of trolls and reindeer and boyfriend all smashing into the ground below. Anna was just about to strike the ground herself, but her nose halted inches from the dirt, and instead she found a freezing wind in her face. Anna was sent flying into the Snow Queen, who immediately wrapped her arms around her.

"_Are you okay?_" asked Elsa.

"Yeah, I- _Whoa_." Anna was more than a little bit disoriented. "What just- _Wait_." The realization hit her all at once. "You just thawed Daniel's ice, and you're giving me a hug and not trying to kill me, and- and- _You're okay__!_"

Anna gave her sister the biggest hug of her life. "I thought- I- I thought..." Here came the tears. "I thought we'd lost you. When... when Daniel did all that stuff to your head, and..."

A shiver rocked her spine.

"Hey!" Anna reflexively wrenched herself free. "Elsa, your hands are freezing! More so than usual, I mean."

Elsa bowed her head. "I'm sorry."

Anna's eyes widened. "Are you losing control of your powers again?"

Elsa stared at her palms. "I don't know... I don't..."

"She saved us!" Before she had the chance to breathe, a horde of trolls was coming her way. "Queen Elsa saved us from the monster!"

But before the first troll could give her a hug of gratitude, he found a wall of sharp-looking icicles pointed at his face.

"_Stay back_!" Elsa held her sister closer with one hand and raised the other threateningly. "_Don't touch us!_"

"Uh, Elsa," Anna tried to say, "the trolls aren't gonna-"

"_I said stay back!_"

The trolls finally took the hint and pulled away.

"Elsa, wait!" Kristoff seemed to be the quickest to connect the dots. "I know you don't remember us anymore, but the trolls won't hurt-"

"_Stop talking!_" An icicle erupted right before Kristoff's face. Elsa's chest was heaving from the ragged, frantic breaths she was taking.

"Kristoff, what do we do?" Anna could feel her sister's skin growing colder as she spoke. "Can one of the other trolls fix Elsa's head?"

"No!" Kristoff's voice sounded considerably less collected than usual. "Grand Pabbie's the only troll who knows squat about magic!"

"_I said stop talking!_" Her sister was holding Anna so tight, it hurt. Anna caught the words "_I won't let them hurt us_" murmured in her ear.

"No, Elsa, listen, Kristoff's our friend! Nobody's going to hurt- Agh!" The next second, Anna was shooting into the air on a torrent of icy wind, holding onto her sister for dear life. "_Elllllllllsaaaaaaaaa put me doooooooooooown_-!"

Every last troll in the valley stood in stunned silence, their heads stuck skywards. After about two minutes, one of them broke the quiet. "She can _fly__?_"

"Of course she can fly," said Kristoff, burying his temple in his palm. "I don't know why I'd just _assumed_ she couldn't…"

* * *

Maybe Anna would be more impressed with Elsa's sudden ability to fly if she wasn't quite so worried for her sister's sanity. A scream escaped Anna's mouth as the two of them soared higher and higher and the ground grew farther and farther away. Anna's shivering was crossing the line from uncomfortable to painful. She'd been dressed for a sweltering drought, not the cold wind and her sister's considerably colder hands.

At some point, Anna gathered the courage to open her eyes and look down. She was almost dizzy with horror, and not just because she was scared of heights. Everywhere as far as the eye could see was _white_. Even the ocean was frozen solid, trailing over the horizon. Had it frozen that far out to sea last time?

"_Ohhhhh_ _dear_," breathed Anna, "we are in deep deep deep deep- _Oof!_" Anna found her head buried in snow. "Ah! Wha-?" Not being a big fan of hypothermia, Anna pulled herself out as quickly as she could and looked around frantically. She was back on the North Mountain – There was no mistaking the icy staircase behind her – but the mountain's peak was a bit more barren than Anna remembered.

Elsa was standing in the empty snow, a dazed look in her eyes. "There's... There's supposed to be something here," she said faintly.

"Elsa!" Anna ran to her side. "Your Ice Palace is gone!"

Elsa brought a palm to her eyes. She seemed to be straining her forehead as hard as she could. "My... palace?"

"What happened?" asked Anna. "Did Brandr suck it up in his swords? Oh yeah, you _did_ beat that guy, right?" Honestly, in all the chaos, she'd completely forgotten about him.

"I... I think so," said Elsa. "I remember... creatures dragging him away, screaming..."

"Well, at least _something_ went right." Anna decided to tough out the chill in her bones and hug her sister. "Elsa, you scared me. I thought... I thought you couldn't remember me anymore."

At these words, Elsa made a soft whimpering noise in her throat. Anna gave a start and met her sister's eyes. There was _still_ nothing particularly sisterly or loving in them. There were, however, a great deal of tears.

"What's your name?" asked Elsa.

"_No_." And now Anna's weren't too dry, either. "No! You remembered me! You... You knew Daniel was an evil jerk! You..."

Elsa glanced away. "Daniel tried to tell me he was the only one who loved me, but... but he asked me to kill you, and... and your face looks just like mine. I don't know how, but I could just _tell_... by hurting you, I was hurting _myself_."

"But... But you don't _remember_ me?"

Elsa gave her a long, hard look. "Are you... me?" she guessed.

"Elsa, no..." Anna's lip was trembling. "It's _me__!_ Anna! Your _sister__!_"

Elsa mouthed "An... na..." to herself, as if she was testing out the word before using it.

"Okay, Elsa, it's... it's okay..." Anna wiped her eyes. "We'll get this straightened out... somehow... And, if you think about it, you're pretty much right... Daniel was tricking you into hurting yourself."

"Did... Did you see his face after I kissed him?" Elsa's lips stretched into a cautious smile. "He was so shocked."

"Yeah." Anna let out an equally cautious laugh. "You really got him! But, err... Elsa, you don't _usually_ like hurting people."

Elsa seemed disquieted at this. "That's right," she said, almost to herself. "I don't. Why... Why did killing him make me so _happy__?_"

"You didn't kill him," said Anna. "Well, not exactly. Daniel was an evil undead monster. Don't think of it like killing him. Think of it more like... putting him back in the ground where he belongs." Just the thought of that brat was making Anna shiver with anger. Oh, wait, that was from the cold. Anna reluctantly removed her arms from her sister. "Sheesh, I knew he was bad news, but I didn't think he was gonna _outdo Hans_."

"So it's okay to kill people if they're monsters?"

"As a last resort!" Anna hurriedly added.

"But... I shouldn't _like_ doing it..." Elsa brought her palm back to her eyes. "That's _wrong_... Daniel... _changed_ me... I can feel it."

"He messed up all your memories!" said Anna. "Trust me, I know what it's like. Your gut's telling you what you remember is real, but it's not. I know it's confusing, but you'll have to trust _me_ and not _yourself_ until we can get you fixed, okay?"

"And..." Elsa cautiously extended a hand. "...you won't hurt me? Not like everyone else?"

"No, of course not!" Anna accepted the hand in her own, forcing herself not to shiver. Instead, she gave Elsa the warmest smile she could muster. "And I won't let anyone else hurt you either, I promise. I love you."

Elsa seemed be grasping for words. "Because... you're my sister?"

"Right." Anna leaned in for a hug. And that's when she spotted something a couple feet from the ice-stairs. "Oh! Elsa, look over there!"

Anna released her sister and dashed down the mountain to the place where Elsa's snowmen-slash-birds had been frozen. Marshmallow, Cloud, and Cottonball made joyful grunts at Anna's arrival.

"Poor guys! Did Daniel do this?" The snowmen nodded pitifully. Anna turned to her sister, who'd followed behind her. "You'd better get them out."

Elsa's eyes flitted to their icicle-claws. "Will they hurt us?"

"Of course not. They're _your_ snowmen."

Marshmallow noticed the unrecognition on Elsa's face and frowned. "Mama?"

Elsa shut her eyes, deep in thought. "...Marshmallow."

Anna's face lit up. "You remember him?"

Elsa nodded. "I remember my snowmen's names. These are..." She pointed to each snowman in turn. "Cloud, Cottonball, and my snowbirds."

"Yeah!" Anna beamed. "Looks like Daniel didn't give you _total_ amnesia after all! Do you remember Olaf, too?"

Elsa looked blank. "Olaf?"

Anna groaned. "Guess he was 'too happy' for Daniel... You'll see him when we get back to the castle. Anyways, can you do that flash-of-light-thingy and get rid of Daniel's ice again?"

"I should be able to," said Elsa. "I couldn't thaw another cryomancer's ice before, but somehow, after I saw Daniel do it enough times, I must have picked up on it from him." She extended her hands. There was another burst of white light, and then all her snow-children were freed. The snowbirds immediately took off for the sky while the three snowmen ran up to their mama. They leaned their noses forward for kisses, but Elsa didn't seem to understand the gesture.

"Hey! Who's this guy?" That's when Anna noticed something nuzzling her leg. She knelt down to retrieve the walking snowball. "When did you make this one?"

Elsa shook her head. "I don't remember."

"Well, then, I guess I get to name him." Anna examined the snowball carefully. "Let's call you 'Snowball.' Keep things simple." Snowball seemed perfectly fine with this. It gave Anna's fingers another affectionate nuzzle. Anna turned to Elsa. "How much _do _you remember?"

"It's all a blur." Elsa shut her eyes again. "Please don't ask me to remember too much. It's... _easier_... when I try not to think back."

"Okay, Elsa." Anna let out a sigh. "Just one last order of business, then. Do that thaw-the-ice trick again and end the eternal winter. Pretty sure everyone in Arendelle's pretty sick of those by now."

Elsa obediently shut her eyes and extended her arms, but nothing happened. "I'm sorry, I can't thaw my _own_ ice. I don't know how."

Anna traded nervous glances with Snowball. Well, its face was blank as always, but it made a nervous cooing sound. "Alright, no big deal, no big deal," Anna said, more to herself than to Elsa. "You've done it before, you can do it again. All you've gotta do is remember love will thaw."

"Love will thaw?" frowned Elsa. "What does that mean?"

Anna brought a hand to her forehead. _Of course _Daniel had made sure to erase _that_ memory. "Do you remember when Hans was about to swing his sword at you?"

Elsa nodded. "Yes... And then..." Her eyes went wide. "_And then you died_."

"What? No, that's just another stupid fake memory Daniel gave you. How could I be dead? I'm right here-" Anna reached for her, but Elsa pulled back.

"_No_, I remember!" Even from a distance, Anna could practically feel her sister's heart thumping faster. "There was a sword... and blood... No, wait, we were girls, and... I froze you... No..."

The winds picked up, sending snow swirling around them.

"Elsa, calm down!" said Anna. "I'm alive! Just look at me!"

"If Anna is dead, then that makes you..." Elsa's eyes narrowed. "An imposter."

"What? How the heck am I supposed to be a-"

"_You're_ lying to me, too! You're trying to hurt me!"

"No, I swear-" Anna's words were drowned out by the howling wind.

"Then... what if..." Horror was leaking into Elsa's voice. "What if Daniel _did _love me, and... you tricked me into killing him?"

"That doesn't even make sense!"

Elsa stared at her palms as if she could literally see the blood on them. "I'm a murderer... I..." Her eyes clamped shut, which coincided with the blizzard intensifying. "_I killed a little girl... beneath an oak tree... I remember-_"

"_That wasn't your fault!_" Luckily, Anna was highly skilled at screaming at the top of her lungs. The words finally reached Elsa, causing the snowstorm to abruptly end.

Elsa turned to Anna expectantly. "How do I know I can trust you?"

Marshmallow leaned in, nuzzling against his auntie. "Don't hurt Anna," he said simply. "She's your sister."

"See?" said Anna, patting his head. "Marshmallow trusts me! Look, _you_ made your snowmen, right? You can trust _them._"

"I can... trust my... snowmen?" Elsa shut her eyes.

"That's right!" Anna nodded enthusiastically. "Now, c'mon, Elsa, let's all calm down so we can go back home and brainstorm a way to get your memories fix-"

Suddenly, a tiny trickle of ice escaped Elsa's palms, like water droplets leaking from a dam. Anna paused mid-sentence and watched the ice trail upwards into the air, forming a perfectly into a humanoid, distressingly familiar shape.

"_Except that on___e___!_" Anna yelped. "You can trust all your snowmen _except that one__!_"

A perfectly sculpted ice-hand reached for Elsa, so detailed that the fingernails and knuckles were visable. "I knew you still loved me."

"Elsa, _no__!_" yelled Anna. "Not your crazy ex-girlfriend! She tried to kill you and freeze the planet!"

Elsa looked lost. She turned to the snowwoman standing beside her.

"My poor Elsa," the snowwoman cooed, stroking Elsa's hair. "Someone's tampered with your memories. I can feel it."

"I remember my snowmen's names," said Elsa, entranced. "You're Mary."

"That's right, my Elsa." A grin spread across Mary's face. "I'm your Mary. You love me."

Elsa glanced back warily at her sister. "What about _her_, Mary? Can I trust her?"

Mary's eyes fell on Anna, who scowled at her. Mary gave Anna a smug, knowing smile.

"No," said Mary. "Kill her!"

"Elsa, don't-"

The Snow Queen's eyes shot towards her sister, and they _definitely_ weren't sisterly or loving _now_.


	61. Prison Life

The culture of rock trolls is not known for producing a great quantity of artwork. Trolls are, however, quite capable of mixing up some of the finest paint in all of Europe using a mixture of rare herbs and clays found only in the Valley of the Living Rock. The trolls simply put this paint to other uses, such as drawing big, red targets on things they don't like so they can throw rocks at them.

_Bonk._

A pebble bounced off the forehead of a stiff, frostbitten corpse propped up against a tree trunk.

"Yeah!" cheered Cliff. "Two points!"

"Do you have to sound so happy?" asked Bulda, folding her arms.

"Sorry, sorry..." Cliff dropped his next pebble and bowed his head. "So how's Grand Pabbie's holding together?"

"He'll live," said Bulda. "We bandaged him up, but those snow-monsters really took a chunk outta him." She glanced off in the direction of Grand Pabbie's burrow, where he was currently resting. "Right now, he's so weak, he can't even use his own magic to heal himself."

"Can't use his magic? So... he can't fix Queen Elsa?"

"I know it looks bad, but it's not hopeless." Bulda sounded confident, but her eyes flickered towards the surrounding forest, which, like the rest of Arendelle, was coated with snow.

"Not hopeless?" Another troll stuck his head out of the bushes. "Are you _nuts__?_ This whole situation stinks! Nobody else knows how to fix the queen's mind, this eternal winter's even worse than the last one, and I'm passing another kidney stone!"

"And that's exactly the kind of attitude we don't need right now." Bulda scowled, then turned to her adopted son.

Kristoff, fortunately, had left some spare ice harvesting gear in Sven's saddle pouch, so he wasn't dressed _completely_ inappropriately for the cold. And Sven, of course, was a reindeer, so his biggest concern right now was less the cold and more his aching tummy. Kristoff slung a leg over his buddy, grumbling to himself.

Bulda gave him a sad smile. "Everything alright, dear?"

"_No_, everything's _not_ alright!" snapped Kristoff. "The whole world's gone crazy! I can't believe Grand Pabbie! He practically _tortured_ Elsa!"

Bulda let out a weary sigh. "He had a tough choice to make, and if he hadn't gone along with that lunatic, we might not be here right now."

Kristoff slowly dismounted his reindeer and knelt down to meet his mother's eyes. "Yeah, I guess that's true." They shared a hug. "Look, I need to get going. It looked like Elsa flew off with Anna towards the North Mountain, and I don't know where else she'd go. Sven and me need to get there before..." His voice trailed off.

Bulda gave him another sad smile. "Trust me, Kristoff, if there's one thing I know about Queen Elsa, it's that she loves her sister more than anything. All the magic in the world couldn't change that."

"I sure hope you're right." Kristoff pecked her stony cheek. "Love you, Ma."

"Love you, too, honey."

Bulda gave Kristoff a quick kiss, and then Sven gave her big, sloppy one, and with that, the boy and his reindeer galloped off. The trolls watched them vanish behind the trees in solemn silence, save for the groans of agony coming from behind the bushes.

"_Uuuuuuaaaaaagh-!_ _Ahhhh... _Hey, guys, I've got some more ammo to throw at the wight!"

* * *

Just looking into Elsa's eyes was enough to make Anna shiver violently. She didn't suppose this was another zany misunderstanding and Elsa was actually about to hug her again?

The Snow Queen raised her arms, and then...

"Don't hurt Anna!" A colossal snowman threw himself between the sisters.

"Marshmallow?" Elsa's eyes went from furious back to confused.

"Mary is the liar!" said Marshmallow.

Now Elsa's freezing gaze fell on her snowwoman.

"No! Don't listen to them!" Mary's own eyes had gone wide. "Anna wants to erase me! You can't let her! I can't go back to nothingness again! Please!"

Elsa clutched her head. "Why are my snowmen telling me two different things?" Her chest began heaving.

"Elsa, listen to me!" Oh geez, how could Anna explain this convoluted "evil snowman" thing quickly? "Mary's an evil snowman – well, snowwoman, whatever – that you make when you're depressed. She can control your brain, and she tried to kill you and steal your powers. Don't you remember?"

"I..." Elsa shut her eyes. "I don't know... I don't..."

"Anna wants to take me from you!" yelled Mary. "Don't let her, Elsa! Don't let her!"

"Will you quit feeding Elsa your stupid lies?" yelled Anna. "Her head's already screwed up enough without you trying to-"

"_Quiet, both of you__!_" yelled Elsa, clutching her temples. "One of you has to be lying to me."

"It's her, Elsa!" Mary yelled as she ran towards her creator. "I would never lie to you. I love- _Ack!_" Suddenly, she found her hands bound together with ice. Her feet were quick to follow suit, causing Mary to tip over and plop into the snow.

"Ha! Poor psychotic snowwoman," snickered Anna. "Must really hurt your pride to- _Ack!_" Needless to say, she was given similar restraints.

"Anna!" Marshmallow ran to the girl's side, and even Cloud and Cottonball seemed concerned. Snowball, luckily, had managed to tumble out of Anna's hands moments before the ice cased them.

"I'm not hurting them," Elsa told her snowmen. "This is just a precaution. I just need to..." She brought her hands to her head again. "...to figure out who's telling the truth."

"It's me, Elsa! It's me!" yelped Anna.

"No, don't listen to her! She's nothing but a lying little skank!"

"_What_ did you just call me?"

"Did I stutter?"

"_Be quiet!_" A freezing wind rocked Anna and Mary, halting the catfight in its tracks. "Until I know who the liar is, _both_ of you are my prisoners."

"But-" Marshmallow tried to say, but he was cut off.

"Now I don't want to hear anything more about this until one of you is ready to admit to lying." Elsa spun around, putting her back to her captives.

With a wave of her arms, Elsa summoned a twisting, misshaped structure of ice that spiraled towards the sky. It looked like something an artist would sculpt out of clay and then sell for an insane amount of money as "abstract art."

Anna and Mary traded glances.

"Gee, Elsa," said Anna carefully, "that's a really good... uh... upside-down ice cream cone?"

Elsa let out a groan of frustration and made a small blizzard to send the upside-down ice cream cone tumbling down the mountainside. "It's _supposed _to be my Ice Palace." Elsa made several more attempts, but each grew more abstract. Eventually, Elsa gave up and plopped herself down in the snow.

"I'm..." Elsa shut her eyes, apparently straining the think. "I'm _supposed_ to have an Ice Palace. But... it all comes out _wrong_."

"Your Ice Palace was beautiful, Elsa," said Mary. "It was like a-"

"_Oh will you shut up?_" Anna turned to Elsa and said, "Your Ice Palace was beautiful, Elsa. It was like a part of you. When Daniel took your memories, he must have taken it, too."

"But... I have another palace," Elsa said, as if realizing it for the first time. "I _remember_. I have another home... because... I'm the queen." She rose to her feet. "I have a kingdom."

"That's right!" said Mary, her icy eyes widening with glee. "You're the ruler of this land! These people are your subjects!"

"Wait." Anna blinked. "You mean you don't wanna run away again?"

Elsa turned to her, frowning. "Why should I?"

"Aren't you worried about hurting people? I mean, your powers are out of control."

"_They_ want to hurt _me_," said Elsa. "Why should I care for the well-being of liars?"

"Uh oh. That sounds like Daniel talking. Elsa, you can't let-"

"_Q__uiet!_ For all I know, you're a liar, too." The snow at Elsa's feet began to vibrate. The winds were picking up. "No more words. We're going home."

"Uh oh, are we flying again?" Even as Anna spoke, the other snowmen, Mary included, were being lifted off the ground. "Um, Elsa, do you think you could be a bit gentler this time? Because last time you flew super fast, and I got pretty _airsiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick_-_!_"

A tiny snowball with legs watched Elsa, Anna, and the snowmen speed off from the North Mountain. It let out an indignant squeak. Snowball did not appreciate being ditched.

* * *

The Snow Queen and her prisoners sailed through the sky, drawing nearer and nearer to her palace. Even from above, the queen could tell it was magnificent. More beautiful and precious than anything in her memory, at any rate.

_Memory_.

Visions flashed before the queen's eyes: _sitting alone in a silent, empty room for hours on end... Her father swinging a sword at her..._

The Snow Queen landed in the middle of the ice-covered courtyard, dropping her prisoners and snowmen at her side.

This palace... It would have looked familiar to the queen if not for the ice covering every inch of it. That hadn't been there during her childhood – _Her mother screaming, her father striking her across the face_. The queen glanced back at the red-haired girl. The girl who _claimed_ to be her sister – _A child falling to the ballroom floor, growing cold, a woman being pierced by a sword on a frozen __harbor_. The girl had also claimed Daniel had done something to the queen's mind.

_Daniel. _An intense longing immediately overcame her. For several long seconds, she wasn't the queen, but a little girl with curly hair sitting beneath a windowsill, staring up at the one she loved above all- _No!_ Daniel was a liar, no different than the rest. The queen _knew_ that. She... She couldn't even trust her own mind.

The queen's eyes skimmed the courtyard. Four enormous statues of ice had been placed by the gates. One was obviously the queen, the other was a man who seemed... familiar – _striking her across the face, swinging a sword –_ and... and the last two were women who resembled the queen, but... they seemed different, somehow...

But before the queen could put her finger on it, she was assaulted by voices.

"The queen's back!"

"Queen Elsa! Why did you freeze Arendelle again?"

"Queen Elsa! What happened? Where have you been?"

"Why is the princess restrained like that?"

"Queen Elsa! Queen-"

"_Stay back!_"

Without her ordering it to, ice erupted from the queen's fingers, forming a blockade of icicles. The mob of guards, maids, and servants drew back, some of them screaming.

_Thousands of eyes fixed on her_. The queen could feel her breathing growing faster. _Men storming her palace and firing crossbows and a chandelier falling and fire-_

"This is _my_ palace."

A blizzard rocked the courtyard, sending countless people fleeing for the gates like herded cattle. The queen's ears were filled with screams, which only caused the blizzard to intensify. Her three snowmen seemed upset by the display, but all they could do was huddle closer to their mama.

The queen caught the eye of a white-haired, muscular man in an emerald uniform. He was the only person in the mob who didn't seem out of his mind with terror. Instead, he walked towards the gates at a brisk pace, giving the queen an unflinching stare.

_You're not a powerful sorceress! You're a little girl who-_

"_I'm not weak!_" the queen screamed at him.

"No," said the man. "You're certainly not." There was something like disappointment on his face. The man walked out the gates, a slow ripple in the current of panicked citizens.

Finally, the courtyard quieted, and the queen, snowmen, and prisoners were alone.

"You didn't have to chase them all away, Elsa," said the red-haired girl.

The queen scowled at her. "They were going to hurt us. We're safe now." She turned to her snowmen. "Stay close to me. If we find any more people in my castle, chase them out." The snowmen didn't seem happy with this order, but they didn't question her authority.

"What are you going to do now?" asked Mary.

"I'm going to live here. This is my Ice Palace." The queen gestured to the layer of ice over the castle walls. "It's where I belong. I'm going to make it safe. And as for _you_..." She turned back to her captives. "Prisoners belong in the dungeon."

The snowmen reluctantly dragged the girl and the snowwoman down to the murky depths of the palace. The damp walls made the queen shudder. _Bound with chains, steel on her hands, suppressing her powers, struggling to escape_...

Cloud and Cottonball tore the ice off the prisoners' hands and feet with their claws, then tossed them into one of the cells together.

"Hey! Wait a minute!" yelped the red-haired girl. "You can't lock me in here with the evil snowwoman! She'll strangle me in my sleep!"

"Anna wants to erase me again!" added Mary. "She attacked me with an ice-eating sword!"

"If either of you tries to kill the other, I'll know _you're_ the liar." The queen extended a hand, and a moment later a snowbird obediently perched on her finger. "This bird will watch you. You'll stay here until one of you is ready to confess to lying."

The queen placed her snowbird on the stone floor outside the cell, then made for the door.

"Elsa, wait!" the red-haired girl called after her. "Mary's insane! She'll never confess to anything! I'm gonna be trapped in here forever!"

But her cries fell on deaf ears. The iron door was slammed in her face, then bolted shut.

As she and her snowmen marched up the stairs, the queen caught the distant sounds of screaming and pounding against metal from below:

"_Aaaaaaaagh! __I hate closed doors soooooooo muuuuuch!_"

* * *

Nothing. Kristoff and Sven had journeyed up the mountainside in cold silence. This time there had been no feisty princess, no wolves, no talking snowmen, and not even an Ice Palace once they reached the top. There was nothing there but _nothingness__!_ It'd been mind-numbing.

Well, the ice-stairs were still intact. Sven hadn't gotten any better at climbing them since the last time, though, so Kristoff had had to explore the mountain's peak alone. The Ice Palace must have been destroyed during the fight with Brandr – who Kristoff really really really really _really_ hoped Elsa had beaten because having a crazy Snow Queen _and_ a crazy faerie running around was the last thing Arendelle needed. The only other sign of Elsa's presence was the boots and armor she'd worn, which had been discarded in the snow, along with Daniel's pajama shirt.

Kristoff was about to leave when he felt something nuzzling his leg. "Wha-?" He glanced down to find a walking snowball cuddling up against him like a very white, very round cat. "Uh, hey there." He scooped up Snowball in his hands.

"_Kree_! _Kree_!"

"Yep, Elsa's definitely been here, alright," said Kristoff. "You don't think it's too much to hope Anna calmed her down, they both went home, and everything's fine, do you?"

"_Kree..._" Snowball turned to the view off the mountainside. The breathtaking landscape was still solid white.

"Yeah, I guess if Elsa was better, she'd have thawed everything again." Kristoff let out a sigh. "Well, at least I don't see any blood splatters or ice-statues of my girlfriend anywhere." He walked down the stairs with Snowball in tow. "C'mon, Sven, looks like we're heading back to the castle."

Sven let out a groan.

"_But I'm still sick at my tummy!_" said the reindeer.

"Well, maybe that'll teach you not to eat so many carrots next time."

"_Ugh... I'm so sick, I couldn't touch another carrot again as long as I live! Okay, maybe just one or two more..._"

You couldn't tell from its featureless face, but Snowball was gaping at Kristoff like he was a maniac.

* * *

After a while, Anna finally ran out of steam, and she simply slumped against the iron door, shivering. "_Stupid_... _door_..."

"Why do you hate an inanimate object?" asked Mary. She seemed occupied with standing across from Anna, staring out the cell window. Of course, they'd been thrown into a different cell than the one Elsa had been in, so, unfortunately, there was no gaping hole in the wall.

"Shush, I'm trying to come up with a plan." Anna knelt down and stuck her face in the crack at the bottom of the door. "Pst! Hey! Snowbird! It's me, Anna! Can you help convince Elsa that Mary's evil and crazy?"

"I'm sorry, Princess Anna, but my creator gave me direct orders," said the snowbird, calm as ever. "Besides, in her current state, she doesn't seem to be listening to _any_ of her snow-creations."

"Ugh, fine, I'll think of something else." Anna re-slumped against the door, then hugged herself. "I wish it wasn't so drafty in here."

"I don't feel cold," said Mary.

Anna rolled her eyes. "You're made of ice."

"Oh."

Anna shivered again, then let out a sigh. "Sure hope Kristoff's okay," she said to herself. "I mean, he's gonna notice I'm gone, and he'll probably try to rescue me... Maybe Elsa will have calmed down by then... Yeah. Yeah, everything's gonna work out fine..."

Mary turned towards her. "Is it pleasant?" she asked.

Anna raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"Having a boyfriend? Having someone who loves you and only you?"

"What do you care?" spat Anna. "You were gonna kill him first, remember?"

Mary bowed her head. "The wight made me do it," she said quietly.

"Yeah, sure. I believe you."

Mary's face lit up. "_Really_-?"

"Sarcasm."

"Oh..."

Anna huffed and turned away. Great. Just great. Let's recap all the bad things that had just happened to her: Daniel had turned out to be evil, just like Anna said he would, and he'd obliterated Elsa's memories and then sicced his snow-monsters on Grand Pabbie so he couldn't change Elsa back, and then Elsa had freaked out, frozen Arendelle again, and re-created Mary, and then she'd chased everyone out of her castle and thrown Anna in the dungeon so she could be cellmates with a crazy evil snowwoman who wanted to kill everyone and freeze the world.

Anna's stomach rumbled. Oh yeah, and she hadn't had anything for hours besides some hot chocolate. Ugh, being in prison was the worst.

* * *

Being in prison was the worst! Prince Hans huddled himself into the tiniest ball he could in the corner of his cell, but he was still freezing cold. Those guards had been quite right in predicting the eternal winter would reach all the way to the prison island soon, and now, seeing as Hans was the only soul lucky enough to stay behind, all the cold seemed to be focusing itself on _him_.

Hans's stomach rumbled. Colorless slop was sounding pretty good right about now. The prince glanced around the prison, as if double-checking that he was alone. Now that he thought about it... if there was nobody here but him, there was no harm in indulging old habits, was there?

Hans jammed a finger up his nose and set to work picking.


	62. Tensions Rise

Ensuring her castle was safe had been hard work. For one thing, there'd been countless strangers still roaming the halls, who, of course, had to be chased out. They'd approached the Snow Queen under the guise of being confused, of wanting to help her, but she hadn't fallen for that. They wanted to hurt her. They _always_ wanted to hurt her. Each encounter had sent the queen's heart racing and her chest heaving. She'd reached the point where she'd been unable to leave a room without a snowman accompanying her for protection. But finally, just as the sun was rising, the queen had deemed the castle empty and safe enough to sleep in.

She'd wanted to make it even safer by placing a thick wall of ice around the perimeter, but her magic wouldn't obey her. Her attempts only caused sheets of ice to randomly zig-zag out of her hands. Instead, the queen had settled on simply having her snowbirds circle the castle while Cloud and Cottonball stood by the gates, keeping watch for intruders.

The queen's first impulse had been to sleep in her own bed, not for the sake of comfort – She could hardly even remember what comfort _was_ anymore – but out of sheer force of habit. But she'd paused at the spiral staircase. Her snowmen were too large to fit in the bedchambers hallway, and she was too sleepy to fool with making a smaller one. If she slept in her bedroom, she'd be sleeping alone.

Instead, the queen had nodded off in her throne room, Marshmallow at her side.

_And while she was asleep, the strangers slipped in, brandishing swords and crossbows and torches-_

The queen's eyes shot open. She sat up straighter on her ice-covered throne and darted her head around the room. Empty. The queen allowed her breathing to slow. A glance out the window told her it was still sunrise.

"Hrm?" Marshmallow uncurled himself from his snow-boulder-form – with the icicles retracted – and gave his mama a concerned look.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," said the queen, steadying herself. "Just a nightmare." She shut her eyes and dropped her posture back into a slouch. But when she shifted her hands, ice erupted from them, jolting her awake again. Her throne was already cased in ice, of course, but the queen hadn't meant to make it thicker. She let out a huff of frustration and hid her hands in her armpits.

The queen was just shutting her eyes again when she felt something cold and soft press itself against her forehead. She opened them to find Marshmallow nuzzling her.

"Mama, you're hurt," he said. "Your head is hurt."

The queen gave him a sad smile, then patted his nose. "I'm not hurt, big guy. I'm just alone. And I'm not _supposed_ to be alone. I'm..." She glanced away. "I'm supposed to have control of powers. I just... can't remember how anymore."

"You need Anna," said Marshmallow.

The queen sighed. "But... but what if she's trying to hurt us?"

"She's not."

Her eyes narrowed. "They're _always_ trying to hurt us."

"_Mary_ wants to hurt us."

"But she says she loves me, just like Anna does," said the queen. "I don't know who to believe. And... I want to believe _you_, but... if Mary is lying... if Mary wants to hurt me, then..." She drew away from him. "...then I can't even trust my own snowmen."

The hollowed-out spaces in Marshmallow's face curled downwards. "I think Mary is all your sadness put into a snowman," he said.

The queen failed to stifle a yawn. This time, when she started to slouch on her throne, Marshmallow gently removed her and placed his mama between his arms, giving her something soft to sleep on.

The queen murmured her thanks. Just before nodding off, she got out, "She must be a _big_ snowman, then..."

* * *

Sleeping on a cold, damp floor is horrible, but it's especially horrible if you've spent your whole life sleeping on luxurious palace beds. Anna groaned and rolled over. It would be shorter to list the parts of her that _didn't_ ache...

Anna opened her eyes to find a pair of big, icy ones fixed on her.

"_Were you watching me sleep?_" Anna immediately sat up, giving Mary her patented death glare.

"Yes," said Mary.

"Well, quit it! Don't you know how to be something _besides_ creepy?"

The snowwoman let out a sigh and obediently turned around.

Come to think of it, maybe _ice-_woman would be an apter name for her. You could almost see straight through Mary like a ghost. She was oddly flexible for being made of ice, though... Well, thinking about Elsa's magic too much made her head hurt, so Anna decided not to worry about it.

"I'm sorry for watching you sleep." Mary's voice sounded like a toddler on the brink of tears. "There's nothing else to look at in here."

"Why are you being so mopey all of a sudden?" asked Anna.

The answer was barely audible: "Elsa doesn't want me anymore..."

"No kidding," snorted Anna. "You drained her magic and then _laughed_ when you thought she was in a coma!"

"That wasn't me!" Mary spun back around to scowl at her. "The wight made me do it!"

"Uh huh." Anna made a show of rolling her eyes. "And how did he do that, exactly?"

Mary's scowl vanished. She sat herself on the floor across from Anna. "He came into Elsa's room in the night and discovered me. He realized what I was and... and used his magic. His snowmen's minds fused with my own. And after that..." She shut her eyes. "I wasn't myself."

This gave Anna pause. Now that she thought about it, Elsa _had_ said something about the wight – _Daniel_, really – doing something to Mary. And Mary's reflection _had_ turned into that weird she-wight just before Elsa unmade her...

"All I want is to love Elsa," said Mary. "I never wanted to freeze the planet and build a world of ice and snow, but... the wight's voices in my head _changed_ me..." She hid her face in her hands. "But the voices are gone now. I see everything so clearly. I don't want to hurt Elsa! I love her!"

"Fine, let's say Daniel _did_ brainwash you," said Anna. "You still told Elsa to kill me!"

"Of course I did!" Mary went back to scowling. "You want to erase me!"

"Do you blame me? For all I know, you could brainwash Elsa and take her body for a joyride again!"

"I never 'brainwashed' Elsa," said Mary. "At least not until the wight came to me. I only wanted Elsa's place in the hierarchy."

"What the heck is that supposed to mean?"

"Elsa's my creator. She has authority over me, and I tried to usurp it. I didn't mean to seize her mind the way I did. I only wanted Elsa to be _mine_. And she wanted me to do it. Elsa was letting me in." Mary bowed her head. "But I can't anymore. Before she erased me, Elsa asserted her dominance. I'm subservient to her now, the same as my siblings."

"That's _still_ bad!" snapped Anna. "You made Elsa get all crazy and paranoid! I mean, come to think of it, it doesn't seem that bad compared to how she is _now_... but Elsa still did stuff like flip out at Kristoff and close the gates again, and I'm pretty sure that's your fault."

"I was _protecting_ Elsa," said Mary, her voice raising. "I told her the truth and showed her the world for what it really is, full of people who hate her and lie to her and shut her away. Not like my brother, who's such a brainless optimist that he wants to melt himself just to feel heat."

"You _should_ be erased!" Anna broke into a full-on yell. "All you know how to do it hurt Elsa! Heck, you're doing it right now! If it wasn't for you, Elsa wouldn't have thrown me in the dungeon, and then everything would be fine!"

"Elsa doesn't need you!" Mary yelled back. "She was alone! Her parents weren't there for her! _You_ certainly weren't there for her!"

"_Not there for her? _I knocked on her door _all the time__!_"

"Elsa was so lonely, she started talking to her imaginary friend again from when she was a toddler, and since your little near-death experience made her realize how dangerous her powers are, her 'friend' convinced her to see if she would kill your pet cat by touching it, _and she did__!_ And that's why her magic brought her imaginary friend to life! _Me!_ Elsa needed someone to help her cope, not lie to her and tell her everything's fine when-"

"_So THAT'S what happened to Cocoa Beans! I should've known it was you, you CAT-MURDERER!_" Anna sprang to her feet, raising her fists. "That does it! Let's see if your head comes off as easy as Olaf's!"

"Go ahead and try!" said Mary, mimicking her stance. "_You're_ the fleshy mortal. When _I_ punch _you_, it'll actually _hurt._"

They were just about to have at each other when a voice from the other side of the cell door said, "Are you two fighting? Because if one of you attacks the other, I'm afraid I'll have to report it to the queen."

"Ah, dang it, that's right!" Anna reluctantly unclenched her fists. "Forgot about the stupid snowbird..."

Mary let out a huff and returned to staring out the window. "Just you wait," she said. "Elsa will come back to me. She has to! She made me! You'll see."

"Yeah, whatever." Anna plopped herself back on the damp stone floor.

Well, that'd been an exciting diversion, but now Anna was back to watching mold grow. She wished Elsa would come to her senses soon. Anna missed her more than she'd ever missed anything. It was like everything that'd happened since the coronation had been undone in one fell swoop. She didn't even have Kristoff right now! Anna wondered idly what he was up to. She sure hoped he was having a better time than her.

* * *

"CAN'T YOU GO ANY FASTER, SVEN?"

Kristoff was giving himself a really big mental kick right about now. He couldn't believe one of the reasons he'd complained about the trip up the North Mountain was _lack_ of wolves!

* * *

Marshmallow lived up to his name. By the time the Snow Queen opened her eyes, she was curled up and sagging into him like a big, squishy cushion. Her snowman was an island – the lone safe haven in a sea of bloodthirsty sharks. The queen had no doubt that Marshmallow cared for her, so... if he vouched for her, maybe the girl claiming to be her sister cared for her, too?

But... that would mean Mary had lied to the queen, which would mean her snowmen were capable of lying to her, which would mean she couldn't trust Marshmallow... Ugh! That couldn't be right!

The queen gave Marshmallow a kiss on the nose, then stood up, yawned, stretched, and exited the room. Now that the castle was empty, she could wander down the hallways without fear. There was still something unsettling about her castle, though. It seemed familiar yet alien, and not just because of the ice covering everything. There were entire rooms the queen didn't remember anymore.

For instance, there was a large room full of strange portraits – Reindeer playing cards around a table, a woman on a swing with a man hiding in the bushes and peeping at her dress... But one picture in particular stood out to the queen. It wasn't a painting like the others. It was a shiny piece of paper slipped into a frame much too large for it, and it depicted a black-and-white image of the red-haired girl with an odd expression on her face.

If... If the girl claiming to be the queen's sister was really some sort of imposter or liar, how had that picture gotten there?

And that wasn't all. Those four ice-statues in the courtyard? Now that she could get a better look at them, one of them was clearly of the red-haired... of... of _Anna_. Well, technically, it looked more like Mary since it was sculpted from ice, but that didn't count.

The queen's eyes fell on the other two statues. They, too, looked familiar. She touched her hands to the bases. "Mama... Papa..."

_Her hair was trapped in a bun, her hands were tapped in white gloves, and she was trapped in her bedroom. There were snowflakes suspended in the air as if time had frozen in the middle of a blizzard, and she was crying because a servant had said something about a boat_-

"Mama?" A gruff voice shook the queen back into the present. The snowmen guarding the gates were giving her concerned looks.

"Oh, I'm..." The queen brought a hand to her cheek. It was wet. "...fine."

But... But these were the people who'd locked her away. There was no reason to be crying right now – She hated them. They were the ones who'd hurt her! Why would she...? It made no sense, the queen realized. Like remembering Anna dying two different times, even though she was alive and well. A discontinuity.

After leaving the courtyard, the queen finally gathered the courage to enter the bedchambers hall, where she discovered a messy bedroom with romance novels scattered about the floor. The queen searched for her own room, but the door was gone. The wall contained nothing but smooth ice.

There was, however, another bedroom in the hall. One that seemed to be missing a door. Strange. The queen crept inside and found a perfectly tidy bedspread, and sitting in the corner were three shapeless lumps of snow stacked atop one another. It looked awfully plain for a snowman, and it didn't seem to be alive. The queen couldn't make heads or tails of it.

She lost interest and turned to her reflection in the mirror.

_Fine. Don't believe me. But mark my words, Snow Queen – __E__ither the people you trust will hurt you, or you will hurt them. The truth always comes out in the end. Go ahead, see how you manage without my help... It will only cause you __pain__._

The queen remembered... Mary's ice-mirror had resided here once, but... All the queen seemed able to recall were her painful and miserable memories, so... did that mean Mary had hurt her? Like Anna said she had?

The queen sighed and examined her reflection. She hardly recognized herself. Her hair was wild and messy, her makeup was absent, she still had on the dark blue ice-dress and icicle-crown Daniel had made for her, and she was drenched in frozen sweat. But she was the _queen_, and she was planning to live in this castle forever, wasn't she? Queens weren't supposed to look unkempt.

She shut her eyes. Her reflexive memories were still intact. She had no issues remembering things like reading and writing. That meant the queen ought to be able to take care of herself, but, again, she was the _queen_. Wasn't she supposed to have servants to do that for her? Well, she _did_ have servants – She'd just driven them all out of the castle. They couldn't be trusted.

The queen supposed she could make more snowmen to tend to her needs, except they might turn out like Mary. Until she decided if Mary was trustworthy or not, the queen would simply have to care for herself. Let's see... First things first, she needed a bath. The queen remembered the location of the bathing chambers quite clearly – She had a vivid memory of being scalded in there – but she'd never drawn her own bathwater before.

But she was smart. She could figure it out. The queen sighed again, slipped off her ice-heels and ice-crown, then set to work tugging off her dress. It was annoyingly tight, but the queen didn't want to dissolve it with Daniel's "flash of light" trick. If her attempts at remaking her palace were anything to go by, the queen probably wouldn't be too successful at remaking her dress, either. Until her powers were back under control, this would be the only ice-dress she had.

Next, the queen removed what was left of the clothing she'd worn to fight Brandr, leaving her nude. She couldn't help but admire herself in the mirror. Her appearance required some upkeep, sure, but she was nonetheless breathtakingly beautiful.

But then a thought struck the queen: What did it matter? She was alone, and with the exception of her snowmen and possibly her sister, she intended to _remain_ alone for the rest of her life. In that light, what was the point of bathing or dressing properly other than giving her something to do?

An ache gnawed at the queen's gut. She couldn't recall any pleasant memories, of course, but she had a feeling that she enjoyedher appearance. It was one of the few aspects of herself she could feel good about no matter what. And now it meant nothing.

The queen retrieved a towel from her dresser, but instead of wrapping it around her, she held it limply at her side. It was only a short walk from the bedroom to the bathing chambers, and besides, what did it matter if she lounged around the castle nude? It wasn't like there was anyone else around to see.

* * *

Fritz stared at the queen, a look of sheer disbelief on his face. "Elsa... what's happened to you?"

Elsa's beautiful, bloodstained body lay at his side. "Fritz..." She let out a feeble cough. "I defeated the faerie, but... at the cost of my own life!"

"Elsa, no!" A single, dignified tear rolled down Fritz's cheek. "You're so young!"

"Fritz, listen to me..." With the last reserves of her strength, Elsa drew her face nearer to his. "There's something I've always wanted to tell you... and I've been too much a fool to say it before now!"

"Tell me anything, dearest Elsa!"

"Oh, Fritz, I love you! I've always loved you!" Elsa threw her arms around him. "Quickly! We must share one last kiss before I shed this mortal coil!"

"Anything for you!" Fritz leaned in, puckering his lips.

"And, I mean, you'll like it even though I'm not nearly as good a kisser as my sister, right?" said Elsa.

"Yes, of course!"

"Good, good." Elsa closed her eyes. "Are you sure?" she asked, reopening one. "Because I kind of just touch your lips for, like, a second, and then I make them go numb."

"Yes, it's fine-"

"Whereas, y'know, Anna does this crazy thing with her tongue, and, _wow_, is it amazing-"

"_Are we going to kiss or not?_"

"Oh, right, right." Elsa leaned in closer... and closer... and then before the lips could connect, she let out a gag and died.

Fritz fell to his knees and threw his head skyward. "Nooooooooo-!"

Next thing he knew, Fritz catapulted out of bed and smashed his head against the floor.

_You need professional help_, said his brain.

Fritz pulled himself to his feet, rubbing his noggin. It was no wonder he'd had a dream about Elsa dying. Fritz had been scared out of his mind that Elsa would lose her battle against Brandr. He'd stayed up half the night, hugging Idina and whimpering, which, of course, meant Fritz had ended up sleeping in today.

He hoped he hadn't missed anything too important.

Suddenly, Fritz's noodle-like body was rocked by a shiver. Huh, that was weird. Why was the castle so chilly all of a sudden? Wasn't Elsa supposed to use her powers to regulate the temperature or something? Fritz glanced out the window. Was it his imagination, or was there more snow outside than usual? Normally, Elsa only extended it to the castle island as part of her "ice palace" decorations...

Ah, Fritz was probably just seeing things. And he was sure Elsa had beaten the faerie, rescued Daniel, and gone straight home. She was probably drinking hot chocolate and sharing a laugh with her sister right now.

Fritz changed out of his sleepwear and brushed his teeth. Once he came back out of his washroom, Fritz caught the sound of creaking floorboards from the other side of his door.

He smiled to himself as he turned the knob. That was probably Elsa. He'd just step outside and say hello.


	63. The Last Temptation of Fritz

Ugh... Fritz had had the weirdest dream where Elsa had turned crazy and evil, she'd restarted the eternal winter so everyone would slowly freeze to death, and he'd seen her naked. It'd been _amaz_\- err, terrible. It'd been terrible.

Fritz slowly opened his eyes to find himself still in the bedchambers hallway. He immediately tried to move his arms and realized with a pang that he couldn't. And he couldn't move his legs, either. In fact, Fritz couldn't feel his limbs at all. This was likely because Fritz's entire body from the torso down had been cased in ice, trapping him in the posture one normally adopts when they're on the brink of running away screaming.

The next instant, Fritz's Elsa-senses tingled, and he spun his head towards her. She was standing across from him, scowling. Fritz's eyebrows jumped up his face. Queen Elsa was fully clothed again (which was... fortunate because Fritz would _never_ want to invade her privacy. That would be wrong. Please don't judge him) but she wasn't in her usual ice-dress-and-French-braid getup. And yet somehow... she was as alluring as ever. Maybe even more so. Fritz hadn't thought that was possible.

When Fritz had convinced himself he was no longer infatuated with Elsa, he'd made a grave mistake. He hadn't been _over_ her. He'd been _used to_ her. What Fritz wasn't used to was a brand new Elsa with wild, flowing hair, an exotic gleam in her eye, and a darker, tighter ice-dress that called attention to the fact that there was much more to Elsa than her hips. Fritz's face wasn't covered in ice, and yet he found it just as paralyzed as the rest of him.

Fritz could fool himself as much as he liked, but there are some things in the universe than are simply constant. No matter how much you try to deny it, one plus one will _always_ equal two. Time to face the facts: black holes trap light, the gravity of planets traps moons, and Elsas trap Fritzes. Fritz had been infected with late-stage, terminal Elsaitis, and there was nothing to do now but succumb to his fate. At the bottom of a hill somewhere, Sisyphus had just had the epiphany that he loved his boulder more than anything else in the whole world, and now he was redoubling his efforts, rolling it uphill with all the fervor and zeal he'd had the day he first started-

"Stop staring," said Elsa.

"Agh! No! I- I wasn't- I wouldn't- I didn't!" Fritz made another futile attempt to escape his icy restraints. "I would never breast at your stares-" He let out another terrified squeak when an icicle tip formed inches from his nose.

"What are you doing here?" demanded Elsa.

"_I was only sleeping in I didn't know you'd be nake__d__ I'm so sorry why were you even naked in the first place __please don't kill m__e__ I love you!_" After a couple rounds of hyperventilating, Fritz finally managed to ask, "Uh... What's going on? What happened, exactly?"

"You fainted," said Elsa, eyes narrowing.

Man, Fritz really ought to see a doctor about that...

"Who are you?" she asked.

Fritz blinked. "What do you mean?"

"_Who_. _Are_. _You?_" Elsa repeated as if she were talking to a particularly slow person.

"Don't... Don't you remember me?" Fritz was racking his brain to try and figure out what the heck was going on, but this wasn't an easy task given most of his brain power was being sucked into a pair of black holes. "Wait, do you have amnesia or something?"

The distance between them suddenly vanished. Elsa seemed to be giving Fritz a close examination. She touched a finger to one of his arms. With the ice wrapped around it, it was almost the thickness of a regular person's arm.

"Look at you. You're hardly more than a child," said Elsa. "You couldn't hurt me if you wanted to."

"What? Of course I'd never hurt you!" said Fritz, his heart thumping faster. "You really don't remember me? You know, Fritz Herman Gudmund. I'm your friend, and I work for you and stuff, and-"

"You work for me?" she repeated, frowning. "Are you saying you're my slave?"

"_Yes!_" Fritz instinctively replied. Then he hiccuped and said, "Wait, I mean _no!_"

Elsa raised an eyebrow.

"I guess you really don't remember..." Fritz bowed his head. "I'm your bodyguard."

Elsa gave him a long, hard stare. "If you're going to lie, at least make it a _good_ lie," she said flatly. "Go draw my bathwater."

"Yes, Your Majesty..."

* * *

The ice holding Fritz had been shattered, and now he was standing outside the bathing chambers door, a nearby snowbird poised to start squawking if he tried to run for it.

So, from what Fritz had pieced together, Elsa had gone bananas and reinstated the eternal winter. The bedchambers hall was distressingly void of passing maids, and Fritz had a bad feeling the rest of the castle was equally void of people. Or at least... void of _living_ people. Fritz gulped.

He couldn't believe it. After all this time, right when Fritz's guard was down, right when they were forging some strange-yet-wonderful, completely platonic relationship, _that's_ when it turned out the queen really _was_ a crazy malefic sorceress after all. And now Fritz was suffering from the conflicting orders of the organ resting atop his torso telling him to run for the hills and the one at the other end screaming, "Not on your life!"

Oh man, this stress was too much. Fritz wasn't sure his heart could stand any more surprises.

"_Boy!_"

The chamber door burst open to reveal Elsa wrapped in a towel. Fritz clutched his chest and died.

"You made the water too hot!" snarled Elsa.

Fritz curled into a ball like a terrified hedgehog. "But you always bathe in warm-"

"You're _trying_ to hurt me!" Elsa pointed an accusing finger, but she gave a start when a bolt of frost shot out and whizzed over Fritz's head.

Fritz uncurled himself and turned around to find a statue bust completely covered in ice. He gulped louder.

Elsa slowly lowered her hand, like she was ashamed of it.

"W-With all due respect, Your Majesty," Fritz got out, "if the water's too hot, couldn't you j-j-just, y'know..."

The queen sighed. "The bathtub is frozen solid. Shouldn't have tried to bathe in the first place... It was stupid of me..." She brought a palm to her forehead. "Go fetch a scrub brush and a bucket of soap."

After only a couple minutes of incompetent fumbling, Fritz returned with soap and brush in hand.

"You're gonna wash yourself with these?" he asked.

Elsa nodded. "It's how my mother did it."

"So... you still remember your mother?"

"Oh." She blinked, apparently disarmed by the question. "I... I suppose I do." Elsa shut her eyes, traveling back. "The scrub brush bristles were so unpleasant, I guess I haven't forgotten..." With her eyes still shut, she added, "Stop staring."

"I wasn't! I wasn't!" Fritz tried to shut his own eyes, but they wouldn't obey.

After that, Elsa returned to the bathing chambers, and then, a couple minutes later, returned to her bedroom. Fritz tried his best not to stare during her trip down the hallway. A for effort...

His heartbeat was finally leveling out when a voice from inside called out, "_Boy! _Come in here!"

"My name's Fritz..." Fritz slinked inside. Honestly, he'd kind of been hoping Elsa would be clothed by now, if only because Fritz wasn't sure how much more of her in a towel he could take without bursting into flames. "What do you need?"

"I need your hands," said Elsa. "Follow my orders."

Fritz promptly burst into flames. "_What?_"

"Go to the dresser drawer over there." Elsa started to point at it, but she stopped herself lest the dresser freeze over. "Open the third shelf from the top."

"Why-?"

"_Just do it_."

Fritz scurried to the dresser and obediently opened it. When he caught sight of the contents, all the blood in his body immediately rushed to his cheeks. "Th-This is- These are- are- are..."

Mostly, the drawer contained a colorful variety of lacy garments, none of which were intended to be worn _outside_ your clothing.

Elsa exhaled through her nose. "I need your hands," she repeated tightly. "I can't control my powers right now. I'm _not_ going to wear gloves, and I'm _also_ not going to wear clothing encrusted with ice."

The most Fritz could manage to say was a strangled garble.

"Get me the black ones," said Elsa.

The garbling intensified.

"And then close your eyes."

"_I don't want to be a pervert! The universe is conspiring against me!_"

"If you don't trust yourself, maybe we could get you a blindfold-"

"_See? SEE?_"

Fritz ended up clamping his eyes shut and reaching into the drawer the way a surgeon might reach into his patient. "Is this right?" he asked in a trembling voice, holding a garment up.

There was silence.

"Elsa?"

"We have a problem," said Elsa.

Fritz wasn't brave enough to open his eyes. "What do you mean?"

"This towel is frozen to me. It's stuck too tightly to my skin for my snowmen to cut it out with their claws. I think you're going to have to- Boy? _Boy?_"

This time, when Fritz fainted, Elsa didn't think to make a soft pile of snow to catch him.

* * *

Given everything that'd gone wrong lately, not being eaten by wolves seemed like a relatively small miracle. An exhausted reindeer trudged through town, eyes half-shut. Arendelle's capital was eerily empty, which, Kristoff supposed, was because most people had more sense than to be outside in this weather. He could hardly see through the sheets of powder pouring from the sky. In fact, maybe he was just looking at his little adventure with Anna and Olaf through rose-tinted glasses, but Kristoff didn't remember the last eternal winter being _this_ bad. In some places, the snow was piled up to people's windows. Snowball had been forced to hide in Sven's saddle pouch lest the wind sweep it away.

After what felt like forever, Sven finally came to a halt at the palace gates, where the regular guards seemed to have been substituted with a pair of giant, angry-looking snowmen. _That_ couldn't be a good sign.

"Uh, hey there, guys!" said Kristoff, dismounting his reindeer. "Official Ice Master coming through-"

"No intruders!" snarled Cloud.

"I'm not an intruder! I live here!"

"Go away!" snarled Cottonball.

"Can I at least see Anna? Is she here? Is she okay-?"

"I said _go away__!_"

All Kristoff got for his troubles was a face full of blizzard-breath. He and Sven reluctantly slinked back into town.

"Well, this is just great," Kristoff said aloud to no one in particular. "Now we get to sleep on the streets in the middle of a snowstorm." Of course, if Elsa's powers were out of control again, there were good odds that even if Elsa didn't want to hurt her, she could've frozen Anna's heart _again_, and this time Anna might not be as lucky...

Kristoff found himself shivering. Naturally, all his proper winter clothing had been left in the castle. Sheesh, it was almost enough to make him think he was better off when he carried all his worldly possessions on his sled.

"Hoo hoo! Big vinter blowout!"

"Oaken's cousin?" Kristoff ran over to the vegetable stand in disbelief. "What are you doing out here?"

"Selling produce, of course," said the large, smiling man.

"But you're not gonna get any customers in this weather!"

"Not gonna get any _competition_, more like," not-Oaken chuckled. "Hence the big vinter blowout sale. To draw people out, yah?"

"Uh, sure." Kristoff and Sven traded glances.

_Is it just me,_ Kristoff asked Sven telepathically, _or is the entire Oaken clan a little unhinged?_

_Says the guy who pretends his reindeer can talk,_ said Sven.

Aloud, Kristoff said, "Look, we need to escape this weather. I hate to ask, but do you have anywhere we could crash?"

"Are you one of those poor people kicked out of the palace?" asked Faux-ken.

"Kicked out?"

"Oh, yah, the queen vent crazy and chased all the staff out. Terrible ordeal." The man shook his head. "Real shame, too. I liked her, but I just can't rally behind a monarch who freezes her whole country _twice_." He looked downtrodden for a moment, but then his attention returned to Kristoff. "Anywho, the palace staff all took up shelter in the church."

"The one where Elsa was coronated?"

"Yah."

"Alright, thanks."

And with that, Kristoff hopped on Sven and trotted off.

Of course, a minute later, he came back. "Oh yeah, so long as you're having a blowout, I'll take five carrots please..."

* * *

The queen was seated in the dresser chair before her mirror, back in her dark ice-dress. The boy had done a more than adequate job applying her makeup. In fact, he seemed oddly well-acquainted with the ins and outs of the queen's personal routine. Her assumption must have been correct – He was obviously a slave or servant of some sort. Currently, he was brushing out her hair.

"I _still_ don't think that little slip of your hand was an accident," she grumbled.

"_It WAS! __You're slippery!_"

The queen caught sight of the boy's face in the mirror. She frowned. He didn't look merely uncomfortable – He looked scared for his life. Were her servants _supposed_ to be that way around her? Well, this was a good thing, wasn't it? So long as he was terrified of her, the boy would never try to lie or hurt her.

The boy's brush strokes had grown slow and mechanical, likely because his attention was otherwise occupied. Oddly, the queen neglected to say "Stop staring" this time. Instead, she found her lips curling upwards. It took her a moment to realize what was happening to her face. This was a... a smile.

_She was a curly-haired little girl, and she had just climbed through the boy's bedroom window for the first time._

"_Are you sure about this?" she asked._

"_Yeah, it's gonna be fine." She could feel Daniel's breath on her neck. "Relax."_

"Elsa?"

The queen was pulled back into reality by a gentle shake of her shoulders.

"You looked like you were spacing out there," said the boy. "So, uh, if you don't mind me asking... Do you know why you can't remember anything?"

The queen stared at herself in the mirror. With the purple eyeshadow and clean, shiny hair, she was looking more familiar than before. "Daniel did... _something_... with the one of the trolls," she said. "It's all a blur."

"So Anna was right? He _was_ a bad guy?"

The queen bowed her head. "He's dead now."

_Her lips were pressed against his and though she'd tried to brace herself, it shocked her how cold they were._

"Oh. Well that's... good." The boy finally finished and returned the brush to the dresser table. "But, uh, now Arendelle's frozen again, isn't it? I saw out the window. And what happened to your sister?"

The queen suddenly rose to her feet. "I don't have to explain myself to you!" She turned to glare at him and, she had to admit, got a small thrill from watching him cower. For the briefest of seconds, an alien sensation passed Elsa's body. It wasn't a smile this time. She couldn't quite put her finger on it.

"Do you have a home, boy?" she suddenly asked.

"Yeah," said the boy. The queen had a strange feeling he was disappointed in her for not remembering. "It's _here_. With _you_."

The queen considered this. "Good," she said. "Then I won't be alone."

"Alone?" the boy frowned. "But, uh, if we're the only people in the castle, how are you going to, y'know, run the country and stuff?"

The queen's face hardened. "I don't owe these people anything. They want to hurt me."

"But everyone's gonna freeze to death!"

"_I don't have to explain myself to you_." The queen returned her icicle-crown to her head and made for the door, but the boy simply stood in place stupidly. She scowled at him. "Follow me."

The boy jolted, then hurried after her. Watching him obey the command gave the queen that strange feeling again, but she trudged down the stairs without giving it another thought.

"Uh, where are we going?" the boy asked, trailing behind her. "Are we just gonna lounge around this big, empty castle for the rest of our lives?"

"Yes," the queen said absently. "This is my home."

"But where will we get food?" asked Fritz. "I'm kinda hungry, and you chased all the palace chefs out, didn't you?"

"Food? We'll... We'll figure something out." She shut her eyes, straining to remember. "I didn't starve up on the North Mountain, but... I can't remember what I did."

The boy didn't seem particularly pleased with this answer.

Eventually, the queen and her servant reached the courtyard, where her three snowmen were waiting for her.

"Mama?" Marshmallow ran right over to receive a kiss on the nose while Cloud and Cottonball stayed by the gates.

"How goes the patrol?" asked the queen. "Any intruders?" Marshmallow shook his head. "Good, good..." Her eyes fell on the large, steel gates, which were currently wide and welcoming. She pursed her lips. "Why haven't we closed the gates yet? It would make it harder for intruders."

"But you promised Anna you wouldn't!" said Marshmallow.

"Really?" The queen looked thoughtful of this. "Why I would do that? I'll have to ask her next time I-"

She stopped mid-sentence, her eyes going wide. A shock ran down the queen's entire body. Her boy- Her servant- Her- Her _Fritz_ had just broken into a sprint, running straight for the gates.

"_Stop him!_"

Of course, his path was blocked by a pair of angry snowmen.

"_I'm sorry! I'm sorry!_" the boy shrieked as Cloud dangled him upside-down by a leg.

"Were you trying to _run away_ from me?" The queen's voice trembled.

"Okay, I admit it, I think you're crazy!" The boy was on the brink of tears. "You've gone nuts and now you're gonna freeze Arendelle and kill everybody! I was just gonna go get help! And maybe some food! I don't wanna starve to death just because you're crazy! And have I mentioned I love you and I really really really _really_ don't wanna die?"

The queen clenched her fists. "Take him to the throne room."

The queen and her snowmen marched inside, where the boy was roughly deposited beside the icy throne.

"Hands above your head," she ordered. The boy complied, allowing his wrists to be locked together with ice. He gave a squeal of terror when the ice trailed upwards onto the ceiling, leaving him standing on his tip-toes, dangling like a big cut of beef in a slaughterhouse. The boy squirmed frantically, but the ice stayed rigid.

"You won't be escaping again," the queen told him. "You're my boy. This is your home."

"Y-You're just gonna keep me like this forever?"

"I'll let you out when I need you." The queen watched her snowmen stomp out the room to return to the gates.

Of course, the queen wasn't sure how much more she _would_ need this boy. She seemed to have lost precise control of her powers, but the queen had still been capable of giving Mary an exact, icy copy of Anna's body. Once she determined if new snowmen would be trustworthy like Marshmallow or untrustworthy like Mary, the queen ought to be able to make some small enough to fit in the bedchambers to help care for her. Snowmen's hands, at least, could be trusted not to "slip" the next time she got dressed.

_G__etting dressed_... Lord knows _that_ had been a trying experience, barking orders while the poor kid struggled to keep his eyes shut. But... he _had _done an excellent job attending to his queen. And even once she'd been properly clothed, the boy had still seemed skittish around her, like he wasn't in the presence of a queen, but a goddess. It was... flattering, in a way.

The queen found herself watching the poor kid's futile attempts to escape his restraints. Another smile played at her lips. He was right at the age where he was too old to be a boy but too young to be a man.

Suddenly, that odd sensation coursed through her body again. The queen still couldn't quite place it. It felt like... like...

_She was an older curly-haired girl now, and she was lying face-up on a bed. Her arms were above her head, frozen to the bedpost by a thick coating of ice, and yet she was smiling. She let out an anxious giggle._

"_Hush, my dear Olive." Daniel loomed over her. "We don't want to wake anyone." He leaned in closer, and then..._

Oh! The puzzle pieces clicked into place. The queen knew what that odd sensation was now. It was... It was... _Oh_. _OH_. The queen's eyes fell on the boy, whose squirming had ceased. When he caught sight of her expression, he reddened.

"Um... Why are you looking at me like that?"

She took a step towards him.

The queen had no warm, pleasant memories whatsoever. Every last one had been obliterated – Daniel had seen to that. But, as a human being, she nonetheless had an implicit desire for warmth, comfort, and companionship. She just... didn't quite remember how to receive it.

_Someone pounded on the door, and Daniel had to tear the ice away from her hands so she could flee out the window, frantically righting her dress as she scurried through the mansion's garden._

"_Hey, Eric. You'll never guess what I've been up to."_

"_Making out?"_

"_Close."_

However, there was one innate, instinctual source of warmth, comfort, and companionship that could always be tapped into without having to remember a darn thing.

* * *

You know, Fritz had _thought_ having your hands bound was a _bad_ thing. He hadn't thought the list of ways to romance the person of your fancy included "hugs, kisses, and _chains_." But given the speed at which his heart was thumping in his chest, Fritz was beginning to rethink that assumption.

Elsa was looking at Fritz with an expression he'd never seen on her before. Her face had never been so red or her breaths so shallow. She took another step towards him. Something was seriously off here, and Fritz might have figured out what if his brain hadn't shut itself down the moment he felt Elsa's breath on his face.

"You've done a good job following orders so far, _slave_." She wet her lips.

Fritz's sapience was dropping by the second.

"Elsa, wait, no, this isn't you!" But there also happened to be some deep part of Fritz's psyche that was _certain_ he'd go to hell if he went along with this. "You don't want this! I'm barely even seventeen! It's not right!" Elsa slooooooowly brushed a strand of hair out of his face. Fritz shivered, and not just because her hands were ice cold. "Elsa, please!"

A wide grin crossed Elsa's mouth, not unlike the one she'd worn while watching Daniel die. "Please _what_?"

Fritz weighed the pros and cons of going to hell.

He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. Elsa seemed to take this as an invitation. She leaned in, and then...

"And here I thought refreezing Arendelle would be the worst thing I'd catch you doing."

...and then Elsa yelped and spun around to find a decrepit old man hobbling into the room, leaning against a cane.

"That's right, I'm not dead yet," said Anders. "Sorry to disappoint you."


	64. Do You Want to Forgive an Evil Snowman?

Was it just Hans's imagination, or... was one of the cell bars loose? He gave it another shake. Ha! HA! This was perfect! The queen's own shoddy prison construction would be her undoing! Hans set to work feverishly shaking the bar with all his might. If he could just slip it out of the stone, he could squeeze through...

Yes, _yes_, a plan was already forming in that masterful brain of his. Hans would waltz out the empty prison, then march across the frozen ocean until he reached Arendelle. Then it would simply be a matter of killing the queen and becoming the hero who saved Arendelle from eternal winter, just as he should have been all along! He'd be so adored by the public, soon-to-be-Queen Anna would be forced to give him a full pardon, and then all Hans would have to do is crank up the charm.

Sure, Hans had locked Anna in a room so she would slowly freeze to death whilst taunting her by explaining his plan in detail (It'd seemed like a good idea at the time. He totally would've gotten away with it if it hadn't been for some lovey-dovey true love magic bullcrap). But _nobody_ could resist Hans, he thought as he absently dug a finger up his nostril.

Besides, rumor had it Anna had hooked up with some half-troll reindeer-man, which meant she was even more desperate than Hans had thought. He bet she'd throw herself into Hans's arms the instant he apologized. And then Hans would finally take his rightful place as king of Arendelle! And if, after the marriage, a little accident were to befall poor Anna, then, well...

Wait. Hans paused his bar-shaking and looked pensive. The murder wouldn't actually be necessary at that point. He'd be king already. Hans thought about this for a minute, then shrugged and resumed yanking on the metal. Oh well, like his mother always said, you can't make an omelet without unnecessarily murdering a few eggs.

* * *

The old man's intrusion lifted a spell off the queen. All of a sudden, it struck her that the little boy wriggling in her ice-restraints was _not _Daniel, in a similar vein to how she herself was _not_ Olive. A wave of nausea passed over her. He was a child. _A child._ What had Daniel done to her? Those hadn't been her own thoughts, her own memories! The queen backed away from her prisoner in disgust.

"Well, I don't know about you, but I have been having a _wonderful_ time." The old man took a shaky step towards her. "Watching Olaf turn into a lifeless pile of snow, then realizing the infirmary was vacant and being forced to crawl until I could find a cane? A real barrel of laughs. And, of course, all the while I was coming up with all sorts of nightmarish explanations for what in the name of the tattered remains of my sanity is going on, which as you can imagine grew significantly more nightmarish once I looked out the window to discover that either I've _really_ lost track of time and it's the middle of January, or your fragile peace of mind has gone down the toilet _again_."

The queen scowled, but it looked like a warm smile compared to _his_ expression.

Anders brought a hand to his eyes. "Your Majesty, whatever you do, please, _please_ don't tell me everybody in Arendelle is freezing to death again because you've had another argument with your sister, she told you she didn't love you, and it made you throw a hissy fit and lose control of your powers. _Please_ tell me there's an _incredibly sensible_ explanation for this madness that I'm somehow failing to see."

"An evil sorcerer made a troll erase her memories," said the boy.

"Oh, obviously. Now I feel stupid."

The queen's icicles threw themselves at the man without her having to order them to. "Who are you?" she demanded.

He didn't so much as flinch. "You really don't remember?"

The queen gave him a careful examination. A scowling face flashed before her eyes. _Oh yes, when has paranoia ever hurt anyone in __this__ household?_

"Maybe vaguely," she said. "What's your name? What are you doing here?"

"Anders," the man said dryly. "And I act as your butler and chief of staff. Or, at least, I _did_. Now I mostly take up space in the infirmary."

The queen raised her hands, the ice poised at her fingertips. Something about this man's tone was making her tense. "Get out of my castle."

The man snorted. "You're going to throw an old man into the streets in the middle of a snowstorm?"

Her eyes narrowed. "You're trying to hurt me."

"Yes, you figured it out. Everyone knows sorceresses are no match for paraplegic seniors."

"Why don't you show your queen some respect?" she snapped.

"Well, then, _with all due respect_, Your Majesty, this is _really_ not the time to worry about hurt feelings." The old man's brow creased. "I'm not going to pretend to understand what the devil is going on, exactly, but I at least feel confident our top priority ought to be thawing this winter before you don't have any kingdom to rule."

"I can't," said the queen. "I don't know how."

"Wasn't it love or something? Where are all your little friends, besides Casanova here?" The man gave the boy a look that did a better job freezing him than the queen ever could. "What happened to Olaf?"

"I don't know who that is."

"Ah." The old man bowed his head, then said, almost to himself, "So _that's_ why..." But his sour attitude returned as quickly as it'd left. "What about your sister? Is she safe?"

It took the queen a second longer than it should have to figure out he meant the red-haired girl. "She's- _Wait_." An idea struck her. "Describe my sister to me."

The man looked nonplussed. "Freckles? Pigtails? Possibly maybe perhaps a very slight predisposition to recklessness?"

The queen nodded. Given all the evidence piling up, either the red-haired girl _was_ the queen's sister, or... or this "Anders" was in league with her. "She's in the dungeon."

"_What__?_" For the first time, genuine concern entered the old man's face. "Why?"

"She can't be trusted," the queen said tightly. "She might want to hurt me."

"_Good God_, that sorcerer must have done _a number_ on you! Why on earth would your sister _ever_ want to hurt you?"

Somehow, his words caused the queen's heart to pump faster. She found herself clutching her temples. "I... I don't know."

"What even gave you that idea?"

"_Everyone_ wants to hurt me!" The queen's breaths were growing shallow. She shut her eyes and was inundated with visions of fire and crossbows and her father drawing a sword.

"Elsa!" It felt like she was hearing his voice from underwater. "Elsa! Listen to me! You _cannot_ panic! Take deep breaths."

The queen complied. To her surprise, she found her heart rate slowing.

"Is Anna safe?" the old man asked.

The queen started to nod, but then she stopped herself. "She's... with Mary."

The man's eyes went wide. "The snow-monster who stabbed me?"

"I have a snowbird watching them," said the queen. "They haven't attacked each other – They've only argued."

The old man sighed and brought his hand to his eyes. "Splendid. And is Anna wearing adequate clothing?"

The queen looked blank.

"It's cold enough up here," said the man. "The dungeon must be like the inside of an icebox. And when was the last time Anna had a meal?"

She failed to meet his eyes.

The old man folded his arms. "You may not trust her for whatever passes as a plausible reason in the fried remains of your brain, but do you really want your sister to freeze or starve?"

The queen took one last deep breath, then made for the door. "I'll take care of it." The old man started to follow her, but she glared at him. "You're staying in here." She turned to Marshmallow, who'd remained behind after his brothers returned to their posts by the gates. "Keep an eye on him."

And with that, she stormed out the throne room.

* * *

Anders wasn't in the greatest of moods. Having your only remaining friend turn inanimate on you and then discovering the eternal winter's back because the queen's gone crazy will do that to you. But, grouchy as he was, Anders could've been worse. Honestly, when Olaf had toppled over, the idea of the sisters having an argument wasn't the first explanation to spring to mind. It'd just been the one Anders had told himself, over and over, as he crawled through the castle hallways.

He was skilled at keeping his composure, but in truth, Anders was about the most upset he'd ever been. He was more than a little tired of misadventures like having coronations interrupted by eternal winters and getting stabbed by evil snowmen. In fact, Anders was _extremely_ tired. Every part of him ached. It took leaning nearly all his weight against his cane to keep himself upright. Still, he'd made more progress walking than he'd expected to when he'd first been told he was crippled. He supposed wandering through an empty castle in search of help had a way of motivating oneself.

Anders looked from the hulking, behemoth snowman to the scrawny boy, whose efforts to squirm out of the ice suspending him from the ceiling had finally ceased. "You know," Anders told him, "I have a feeling any attempts to take advantage of the queen's current, vulnerable mindset would result in a hefty amount of jail-time down the road."

"I'm innocent! I'm innocent!" squeaked Fritz. "_She's_ the one who tied _me_ up!"

"Oh, I'm sure. And did Princess Anna dress as her sister and force herself on you all on her own, too?"

"_Y__es__!_"

* * *

Snowwomen didn't need to breathe, which meant they didn't need to yawn, either, but Mary was starting to wish they did so she'd have some way of expressing her boredom. She thought she'd prefer having a physical body to manifesting as a reflection in an ice-mirror, but somehow, she'd felt less confined in the mirror than she did in this prison cell. Right now, Mary was curled up on the far side, watching Anna with fascination.

Mary hated Anna, of course, though she had to admit Anna had a kind of beauty to her. She and her sister were so alike and yet... completely different. They were flipped, Mary decided. Elsa was strong on the outside and weak on the inside, while Anna was weak on the outside and strong on the inside.

Were Elsa in Anna's shoes, she would've given in to despair already, but here Anna was, still toiling away. She'd used her finger to draw an elaborate series of pictures on the frosted cell wall. They seemed to be a diagram of some sort.

"Okay, I think I've got this figured out," Anna was muttering to herself. "We've got three big problems. The first one-" She pointed to a doodle of stick-figure Elsa with squiggly lines above her head. "-Elsa's memories are screwed up. If we wanna fix them, we're gonna need that memory spell Grand Pabbie cast on me. Problem is-" She gestured to an illustration of an old rock troll with Xs in his eyes. "-we're gonna have to find someone else to cast it. Hmm... Brandr said there were more people with magic in Arendelle than we thought..." Anna looked pensive for a minute.

Then her face lit up. "Wait a minute! Didn't Oaken's brother say his sister turned him into a salamander?"

Mary gave her a look.

"He got better," said Anna. "Maybe his sister can cast the memory spell?"

"Those don't sound like the same branches of magic," said Mary.

"_I didn't ask for your opinion!_"

Mary bowed her head. "I'm sorry... I was just trying to help... I don't want Elsa's memories gone, either."

Anna let out a huff, then resumed talking to herself. "Okay, okay, we need to find someone to cast the spell, and we're also gonna need Olaf, since he has our childhood memories and stuff." She pointed to a doodle of Grand Pabbie, Olaf, and Anna holding hands, complete with little stars to represent the sparkly magic.

"On to problem number two." Anna pointed to a crude map of Arendelle with lots of squiggly lines to represent snow. "Elsa trapped Arendelle in eternal winter again. Now, to fix this one, all we need is for Elsa to remember that love thaws. I guess solving problem number one would solve this, too, but it might take us a while to find someone with magic, and the sooner we unfreeze Arendelle, the better.

"Now, I bet I could get Elsa to unfreeze everything even with her memories messed up if I just gave her some sisterly support... except for problem three." Anna scowled at Mary, then pointed to what seemed to be a stick-figure rendition of her with horns and a goatee. "_Somebody's_ making Elsa even more paranoid by telling her to love _her_ instead of me."

Mary turned away from Anna, folding her arms.

"To fix this one..." Anna shot Mary another glare. "...Elsa's gonna have to figure out _you're_ the liar and then get rid of you, just like before."

The similarities between Mary's ice-body and a human body were only skin-deep – She had no internal organs to speak of. Yet something deep within Mary was tightening. She rose to her feet and stormed over to Anna's side of the cell.

"What are you-?" Anna wasn't expecting Mary to open her mouth and release a blast of freezing wind, like her brother Marshmallow. The wall was quickly covered in a fresh layer of frost. "Hey! I worked hard on those!"

"I won't be erased again!" spat Mary. "It's death! It's worse than death! It's nothingness! It's-"

"Hello?"

Both girls snapped to attention at the sound of footsteps. They ran to the cell door just in time for it to swing open.

"Elsa! You're back!"

"I knew you still loved me!"

"_Stay back, both of you!_"

When the queen tensed, both prisoners pulled away, giving her some space. Elsa was carrying a silver serving tray holding a bowl of soup, and slung over her shoulder was a heavy quilt.

"I... I brought these for you," Elsa said. "I didn't want you to be cold or hungry."

"You're still thinking about me!" Mary ran forward, throwing out her arms. "Thank you so much-"

"They're not for you."

"Yeah! It's not like you need them for anything, ice-for-brains." Anna smirked at Mary, then cheerfully accepted the gifts. "Thanks a bunch, Elsa. Look, I know you're confused, but you need to let me out of here soon, okay? I think I've got a plan to fix your memories. We just need to find someone to cast a spell to-"

"_No_." Elsa stepped back, her eyes widening. "Nobody's casting a spell on me."

Anna's face fell. "But-"

"I won't let anyone cast spells on you, Elsa," said Mary. "I'll never let anyone hurt you!"

"Ugh, put a sock in it already!" Anna shot her a dirty look, then turned back to Elsa. "Don't worry about it right now. Let's focus on getting your powers under control again."

"I didn't come here to talk," said Elsa tightly. "I just needed to make sure you were okay. Will that soup be enough?"

"Uh..." Anna sat on the dungeon floor with the tray on her lap. It also came with a spoon, but what kind of feisty-pants would Anna be if she bothered using _that__?_ Anna took a greedy slurp, but the next second, she had to make an effort not to spit it out. "Ick! This is like ice water! Couldn't you have heated it up first?"

Elsa's eyes fell on the tray and quilt, both of which were covered in frost where she'd held them. "No," she said flatly. "I don't think I could've."

"Oh, right. Uh..." Anna took a deep breath. "Don't take this the wrong way, but... if your powers are out of control, couldn't you just... y'know... wear gloves again?" In response to Elsa's face, she quickly added, "Just for practical reasons! You could take them off whenever you needed to!"

"My powers are stronger than ever before," said Elsa. "I doubt some pieces of cloth are enough to hold them in anymore. Frankly, I think the gloves were only ever a placebo anyways. Now, if that's all you have to say-" She started for the door.

"Elsa, wait!" Anna called after her, hopping to her feet. "I have to use the little princess's room!" Elsa looked totally lost, so Anna crossed her legs and added, "I had, like, over twenty cups of hot chocolate before I left the castle. I'm about to burst."

Elsa sighed. "Fine, but I'm walking you straight there and back. No detours."

"Trust me, I'm going there as fast as my legs can carry me."

Mary's pupil-less eyes widened as she watched Anna waltz out the cell door. "Wait!" she called after the sisters. "I, um, need to use the bathroom, too!"

"Sorry to burst your bubble." Anna made a show of slamming the door in Mary's face. "Snowmen don't use the bathroom," she taunted through the bars. "Which is great because we have enough trouble house-training Olaf already."

"That's not fair! Why does Anna get to stretch her legs just because she's human?" Mary's cries fell on deaf ears. She listened to the sisters' footsteps grow fainter and fainter.

Mary shut her eyes. "Not fair..." she repeated. For a minute, there was silence, save for a soft sniffling sound.

"Sister? Are you alright?" Then a voice came from the other side of the door. Mary gave a start and knelt down, just as Anna had done before, to speak to the snowbird through the crack at the bottom of the doorway.

"_No_, I'm _not_ alright," said Mary, her voice trembling. "Elsa... Elsa doesn't love me anymore... She's chosen her sister over me. It's not fair! I would even settle for being Elsa's servant, like you, just so long as she would love me..."

"Why can't Elsa love both you _and_ Anna?" asked the snowbird.

Mary shook her head. "Anna wants to erase me. It's death."

"Oh." The bird paused, apparently pondering this. "Sister, you're the only one of Elsa's living creations to have ceased existing and then come back. Can you tell me... what happens when we die?"

"It's dark," said Mary. "And lonely. And you can't think... and you can't love Elsa..."

There was another silence.

"That sounds bad," said the snowbird. "I don't think our creator should unmake us after she's made us."

"You're right. She shouldn't." Mary brought a hand to her cheek. She was surprised to find it was wet, and not because her ice had melted. "And... if she's going to make us... she shouldn't make it so we're always sad. It's..." Her voice trailed off.

"Not fair?" finished the bird.

Mary's cheeks were growing wetter by the second. It was a new feeling, and it scared her a little before she realized what it was. "Will... will you love me even if Elsa doesn't?"

"Of course. You're my sister."

* * *

"Ahhh... I feel ten pounds lighter!" Anna emerged from the staff lavatory, then ran down the hall to give her sister a hug, but Elsa drew back. "Don't worry, I washed my hands."

"Don't touch me," Elsa said faintly.

"Oh, come on, you've gotta know by now that Mary's the crazy one. I'm your sister!"

Elsa seemed a bit swayed by the words. She still had her hair down with that icicle-crown and much _much_ skimpier ice-dress, but with her hair a bit tidier and her makeup back on, Elsa looked marginally less like an evil maniac than before.

"I..." Elsa leaned in, like she was sharing a secret, and said, "I think you're my real sister. And... and I think Mary is a liar..."

"Yes! Thank you!" Anna took this as an invitation to hug her. "I love you _so much_, Elsa, and don't you ever doubt it again, okay?" But she had to let go once a chill ran up her arms. "Whoa! You're even colder than before! We need to get your powers under control fast!"

Elsa bowed her head. "I'm sorry, but I don't think it's possible anymore, Anne-na."

Never before had Anna hated that name so violently. "_A__h-__na_," she said tightly. "It's pronounced _A__h-__na_."

"I'm sorry," said Elsa, "but I don't think I'll ever have control while my memories are... are..." She brought a had to her temple. "..._wrong_."

"Well, I think I've got a way to fix that, too," said Anna. "But we're gonna need Olaf. Where is he?"

Elsa blinked. "I'm sorry, can you explain who this 'Olaf' person is?"

"He's one of your snowmen. You haven't seen him around, though?"

"I think... if I don't remember him, my magic can't bring him to life."

Anna let out a groan. "Great. Now we're gonna need a new anchor point thingy. Man, I was already really terrible at coming up with ideas for them..."

"Anne- _Anna_," Elsa got out. "If Mary really is a liar... what do I do with her?"

"Same as last time," shrugged Anna. "You made her, so you can unmake her, right?"

"Unmake her...?" Suddenly, an odd look crossed Elsa's eyes. "You mean... erase her, like... what she was scared you would do to her?"

"Uh, yeah, I guess so." Oh no. Elsa was getting that face again like Anna was a spider dangling in front of her nose. "Elsa, what's wrong?"

"What if... What if Mary really does love me, and you're trying to trick me?"

"Oh _come on_, Elsa!" Anna let out a groan. "What's it gonna take to convince you-?" She reached out a hand, but it was slapped away.

"I think... I think you should go back to the dungeon." Elsa's eyes narrowed. "That was the agreement."

"Elsa, wait!" Anna had to rub her hands together – They'd gone numb where Elsa had struck them. "You can't throw me back with the crazy snowwoman! Come on, we need to do sisterly stuff if you ever wanna control your powers. I mean, so long as we've got a big, empty castle to ourselves, let's go, I don't know, eat all the chocolate lying around the kitchen!"

Elsa's face softened. She seemed the slightest bit tempted by this. "I don't remember what it tastes like."

"Well, then, it'll be like you're having it for the first time. It'll be great! Now come on, let's forget about Mary and-"

"_No!_" Suddenly, the ice-covered walls of the hallways found themselves sprouting tiny icicles. "My snowmen are my children! You want me to hurt them!"

Anna took a step back. "Okay, Elsa, okay, let's calm down before we do anything rash-"

* * *

"Ah!" Anna's butt slammed onto the damp dungeon floor.

"Welcome back," said a monotone voice. Anna sat up and glanced at Mary. She seemed to be hugging her knees in the corner of the room, and if Anna didn't know any better, she'd say Mary's cheeks were wet.

"Elsa, whatever she's told you, it's not true," said Mary. "I love you! We need each other!"

Elsa hesitated at the doorway, looking back and forth from Anna to Mary. "I... I think Anna is my sister, but... but I made you, Mary. You're one of my snowmen. I..." She shut her eyes. "I love you, too."

"Elsa, no!" yelled Anna. "Even if Mary's not lying and Daniel did mess with her, she's still, like, Olaf's evil opposite, remember? Mary's never gonna be anything but a bad influence on you!"

"Don't listen to her, Elsa! She wants you to erase me again!"

"Well, yeah, but only because you're crazy and evil!"

"_See? See?_" Mary dropped her monotone, her voice growing wild. "Well, guess what, Anna? If _you_ want _me_ to die, then maybe _I_ want _you_ to die!"

"Nobody's going to die!" said Elsa.

"Erasing you doesn't count as killing!" Anna snapped, glaring into Mary's icy eyes. "If you're the opposite of Olaf, and he's all of Elsa's happy childhood memories, then guess what that makes you, Mary? Because it doesn't make you a person!"

It was at these words that the blizzard erupted from Mary's mouth, sending Anna tumbling backwards. "_Don't ever say that again! Don't ever say that again! Is __Olaf__ a person? Is he more of a person than me just because he's __happier__? Don't ever_\- Erk!"

Mary clutched her throat, gagging. The snowstorm escaping her mouth had halted in its tracks. It didn't matter if it was coming from the mouth of a snowwoman or not – If the queen of the ice and snow wanted a blizzard to end, it ended.

"_Stop. Yelling_," said Elsa. "I'm starting to think _neither of you_ are telling the truth."

"But-"

Elsa stormed out the cell, a freezing wind slamming the door shut behind her.

For a minute, Anna stared at the door. Then she turned to Mary, her fists trembling. "Look what you did now." Anna let out a huff and plopped herself on the cell floor, throwing the quilt over her knees and taking a furious slurp of her soup. "At this rate, Elsa's never gonna calm down, and everyone in Arendelle will freeze, and _whose_ fault will it be, _Mary__?_"

For several minutes, Anna slurped her meal in silence, her back to Mary. But had she chosen to turn around, Anna wouldn't have found an _angry_ snowwoman.

"Anna," Mary said softly. "I'm... I'm sorry for yelling. Can... Can you share the blanket with me?"

Anna groaned in frustration and threw her empty soup bowl to the floor. "For the last time, you're made of ice! You can't feel cold!"

Mary turned away, seating herself in the far corner. "I can feel lonely."

Anna did a double-take. Mary didn't look particularly murderous or crazy anymore. In fact, huddled in the corner, hugging her knees like that, she seemed downright pitiful.

"Hey, Mary?" she said slowly. "Y'know, if you can't brainwash Elsa again like you said... maybe... maybe instead of unmaking you, we can just keep you in prison."

Anna was right, she _had _been on the brink of tears. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Mary's words were muffled by her hands over her face. "It's my fault! It's... my... fault... Everyone I love gets hurt..."

The words echoed throughout the cell. Anna found her eyes drifting downwards, towards her quilt.

"Nobody loves me... Elsa loves all her other snowmen, but not me. She never wanted me... She only made me because... because she had no one else. And all I did was hurt her... I don't... deserve her..."

"Mary?"

Mary's cries were silenced by a quilt landing on her lap. Anna sat herself at Mary's side, beneath the blanket, then gently took her hand. It was pretty cold, but it was nowhere near as chilly as hugging Elsa had been.

"Y'know, I can be a real jerk sometimes," said Anna.

Mary stared at her in disbelief. Then she wiped her eyes and said, in a voice likely meant to sound more confident than it actually did, "You... h-huh-have to _promise_ not to erase me."

Anna took her other hand in hers. "I promise."

Mary sniffled. "I'm sorry," she repeated. "I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry, too," said Anna. "I was wrong, and I was just too stubborn to see it. None of this was ever your fault, Mary. Daniel screwed up your head. That pretty much puts you in the same boat as Elsa, really."

Mary nodded feebly. "Will... Will _you_ love me, then?" she asked. "Elsa abandoned us both. She doesn't love either of us anymore."

Anna sighed. "That's not true, Mary. Elsa's just confused. How about a truce?" She released Mary's hands, then met her blank eyes. "We don't try to kill each other, and Elsa can love us both."

"Us... both?"

Anna nodded. "Yeah. You're totally right, Mary. Elsa made you just the same as her other snowmen. That makes you part of the family."

"So..." Mary said slowly, as if she wasn't quite sure she understood, "I'll love Elsa... _and_ you?"

Anna nodded again. "Yep. That's how family works. And since it was pretty much Daniel's fault anyways, I forgive you for messing with Elsa's head and making her paranoid and stuff. Just promise you won't brainwash Elsa and try to freeze the planet again, okay?"

The slightest smile crossed Mary's icy lips. "I promise."

Anna was about to give her a hug, but Mary beat her to it. She was cold but... surprisingly soft for being made of ice. Anna let Mary bury her face in her shoulder. "Hey... It'll be okay, Mary... We'll get Elsa fixed, and everything's gonna be just fine..."

Anna had learned a valuable lesson: No matter how bad a person may seem, they can always realize their mistakes and find redemption.

Except Hans. Screw Hans. Anna hoped he was having a miserable time in jail.

* * *

It WAS Hans's imagination. He came to this conclusion after ten fruitless hours of tugging. Now Hans was starving, freezing, and _exhausted_. He slumped over on the cell floor, staring at the unmoved bar.

"Eff my life."


	65. Terminal Elsaitis

As a man of the wilderness, Kristoff never thought he'd miss being indoors with a crackling fireplace so much. The church was packed to the brim with palace staff, all crammed into pews, wrapped in blankets, coats, or both, and fighting over the paltry amount of food available. Now that they were out of the wind, Snowball judged it safe enough to poke its round head – or, uh, body, whichever – out of Sven's saddle pouch.

"Man, I hope there's enough left for us." Kristoff retrieved half a carrot from Sven's mouth and stared at it wistfully. "Never thought I'd see the day I turned down carrots, but I wouldn't mind some _warm_ food right now." Of course, normally a stinky reindeer wouldn't be allowed in church, but considering the raging snowstorm outside, the priest made an exception.

At least, however crazy Elsa might be now, she hadn't been crazy enough to hurt anyone. The staff didn't seem to be too understanding of this, though. While a couple of them like Kai and Gerda were arguing in the queen's defense, Kristoff caught more than a few snatches of more troubling conversations.

"I'm telling you, it's the only explanation!" Henrik was saying to the guard squished up against him in the pew. "The queen finally realized her true feelings, but the princess freaked out and rejected her, and the queen was so heartbroken that she made another eternal winter!"

"For the last time, no!" snapped Morten. "There's got to be a better reason for the winter than _that__!_"

A gray-haired advisor from the pew behind him leaned into his ear and hissed, "_Feeeeeeeemaaaaaaaale_ _hyyyyyyyyyyyysteeeeeeeeeeriiiiiiia_..."

Morten groaned and buried his face in his palm.

"Are you the princess' boyfriend?"

Kristoff was hoping to grab some food and maybe some thicker clothing, but before he could get a few steps through the door, he was stopped by a white-haired man wearing an emerald uniform littered with medals.

"Have you seen the royal sisters?" asked Admiral Klaus. "Do you know what caused the queen's episode?"

"Yeah, uh..." Kristoff glanced at Sven.

_Let's leave out the part about the trolls, shall we? _said Sven.

"A sorcerer messed up her head with magic," Kristoff answered carefully.

Klaus's eyes widened. "A sorcerer? Is that related to the creature that attacked the queen in her castle?"

"Uh, yeah. That's him." Kristoff blinked, disarmed. "How did you-?"

"Can this be undone?" demanded Klaus.

"I sure hope so. We'll have to find someone else who knows magic, though."

"Where is this sorcerer now?"

"Dead," said Kristoff. "Elsa killed him."

At this, Klaus's face returned to its usual stoicism. "I see. What about the sickly boy Queen Elsa was caring for? Several people here claim they saw him use the same ice-magic as her."

"He's the same guy," said Kristoff. "He disguised himself by putting some sort of ice-skin all over his body, which is... really gross, come to think of it."

Klaus made a sharp intake of breath. "What's his name?"

"Daniel."

He shut his eyes. "I see."

"Why, do you know him or something?"

But Klaus ignored Kristoff, turning around and making for the podium at the head of the pews. "Everyone, listen to me!" The masses quieted, their heads turning his way. "If what this boy tells me is true-" He gestured to Kristoff. "-the queen's mind is lost. Poisoned by black magic. And if no one here has magic of their own, then we have no hope of saving her." He paused, but no sorcerers stepped forward. "The queen is driving away anyone who tries to enter her castle. There's no reasoning with her." Klaus bowed his head. "I had high hopes for Arendelle's queen. I thought she would be the one to bring mortal and magic together again. And so it's with the deepest regret that I tell you our only option is to kill her."

Shocked whispers passed through the crowd. Gerda looked like she might cry.

"Hey! You can't do that!" yelled Kristoff, running up to the podium. "Elsa's the victim here!"

"If the rumors are true, the queen's winter has already breached the borders of our neighboring countries," said Klaus. "Even if we don't all freeze to death, there could be a massive-scale war. And that's assuming this winter doesn't keep spreading until it engulfs the whole planet! I'm asking us to end one life to save _billions._"

"But- But-" Kristoff grasped for words. "We fixed things last time without killing anybody! All Elsa needs is for Anna to calm her down-"

"Princess Anna was last seen in shackles of ice, being dragged into the castle by the queen's snow-monsters!" spat Klaus. "And even if we did fix her mind, what would stop this from happening again? All it would take is some clever warlord with access to mind-altering magic!"

Kristoff was on the brink of pointing out that Grand Pabbie had invented that spell on his own, meaning no one else knew how to do it, but he bit his tongue. The last thing he needed to do was alert some magic-phobic mob to the trolls hiding in the forest.

"I'm not going to pretend what I'm asking us to do isn't dangerous," Klaus announced to the church. "But we have the entire royal guard, as well as anyone else who'd like to volunteer. The militia's arms warehouse isn't far from here, and I doubt the queen's accounted for it in her maddened state. The last rebellion failed, but its numbers were fewer, and the queen was in her right mind then. This time, we might have a chance."

There were a couple protests from the crowd, by they were drowned out by the cries of agreement. Kristoff marched back to Sven, resigned.

"Kree, kree?" Snowball chirped sadly. Sven, too, seemed solemn, only halfheartedly chewing his carrots.

"There's nothing we can do, guys," sighed Kristoff. "I can't stop a whole mob. I... I don't even know if I _should_ stop them..." His eyes met the floor.

Maybe Klaus was right. Maybe their best bet was to hope killing Elsa would make the winter thaw. Brandr had certainly had success stopping the planet from freezing by killing the culprit.

Kristoff was reduced to standing at the sidelines, scratching Sven's ears uselessly while he watched the mob. At the head of it, Admiral Klaus retrieved an old-fashioned musket resting against the wall.

* * *

The Snow Queen stormed down the palace hallways, her every heartbeat sending jagged icicles bursting out the frost-covered walls. Her face was painted purple by the ice's faint glow.

It was so obvious. The queen hated herself for not realizing sooner – She couldn't trust _any_ of them. The red-haired girl was a liar, her snowmen were liars, the old man was a liar, Daniel was a liar... Her instincts had been right in the first place. The entire world wanted to hurt her. They were all against her. They were _monsters_, every last one of them.

The queen stormed into her throne room, chest heaving. Her snowman, the old man, and the boy all turned towards her.

"How's Anna?" the old man asked.

"What's it matter to _you__?_" snapped the queen.

"Well, forgive me for caring," he huffed. "So what are you planning on doing now? Hiding out in your castle and letting the people you're responsible for ruling freeze?"

Elsa spun towards Marshmallow. "Get him out of my presence_._" Marshmallow looked confused, but he didn't question her. He squeezed himself down the hall, scraping the ceiling, and dragged the old man along by the arm.

The queen's breathing was growing faster by the minute. _So obvious_. She knew now why she couldn't trust him – He wasn't afraid of her. Making people afraid was the only way to ensure they wouldn't hurt her. The queen _needed_ fear. Fear was her ally.

Her eyes landed on the boy, whose hands were still frozen by the strand of ice trailing to the ceiling. He looked like he might pass out from terror any second now. She knew the boy would never hurt her. He was... the only one who wouldn't.

The queen seated herself on her throne and made some unsuccessful attempts to slow her breathing. She was safe now, wasn't she? All the queen had to do was instill her prisoners and snowmen with the same fear she'd instilled in the boy, and she would never be hurt again.

"Uh... Elsa?" spoke up the boy. "My arms are killing me. Can... Can you let me out if I promise not to run away again?"

"_No_."

"Okay, okay, sorry..."

Ha. Look at his sad attempt at lying. The queen had been right – This boy couldn't hurt her if he wanted to. But... now that he'd pointed it out, she could see the pain on his face from his stiff arms. The smallest bit of pity welled up inside the queen. That strange sensation from before welled up inside her, too, but she fought it back down.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I can't risk you running away from me again. You're all I have."

The boy frowned. He seemed to be looking at her with just as much pity as she was looking at him with. "That's not true," he said. "You've still got Anna, right? And your snowmen."

The queen shook her head. "I can't trust them. They might hurt me."

"Really? Even the birds? I mean, the birds are so tiny. What could they do?"

This gave the queen pause. "Well, I suppose I've never seen the snowbirds defy my orders. Maybe you're right..."

"And Anna wouldn't hurt you, either. You can trust her!" But this was where the boy pushed his luck. The queen glared at him, then turned away.

For several minutes, the two of them sat in silence. Was... Was this what the rest of the queen's life would be? Hiding out in her castle like the old man had said? Sitting on her throne, doing nothing? That couldn't be right. The queen had spent years in isolation – It was the one thing she remembered clearly. She must have done _something _to pass the time.

The queen shut her eyes. She was immediately inundated with images of screaming parents, of lying in her room alone, of crying when her ice refused to obey her... but the queen pushed past those, instead searching for memories of the dull parts of her day when she'd had nothing to do. She remembered reading books, but she was certain she'd found that unpleasant. She distinctly remembered growing tired of reading after her parents turned it into an exercise, having her read morbid or frightening stories to see if she could keep her powers restrained.

What else had the queen done? She'd eaten food, hadn't she? Yes, she remembered because the food had been taken away as punishment, and... and because her diet had been strictly controlled. That'd been because... when she'd been trapped in her room for so long, her parents had been worried she would overeat out of boredom and put on weight. When she was about eleven, there'd been an argument about it, and she hadn't been allowed any triple-double-fudge sundaes for a month. She'd ended up in tears. She remembered the crying vividly.

So... if _losing_ the dessert was _unpleasant_... _having_ it must be _pleasant_, right? Besides, hadn't the red-haired girl said something about wanting to eat the chocolate lying around the kitchen? Her mind made up, the queen raised a hand and reached out with her thoughts. A second later, a gust of wind blew through the door and dropped a pile of snowflakes on her finger, which took the shape of a snowbird.

"Go to the kitchens and bring me chocolate," she told it.

"Yes, Your Majesty." The bird fluttered off.

"You're getting food?" spoke up the boy. "Can I get some?"

The queen scowled at him again.

"You gave _Anna_ food..." he muttered.

She let out a sigh, then glanced at the doorway impatiently. That bird was taking too long to come back. And besides, even if it did turn out to be pleasant, eating was a passive experience. The queen wanted something to _do_. Like... Like a game of some sort.

_Daniel 'played games' with Olive_.

No! _N__o__!_ The queen fought down those thoughts. Those weren't her memories! She _knew_ those were ones Daniel had given her! He'd been trying to mold the queen into some twisted "replacement Olive." She hated it! Hated _him__!_ The queen no longer had even the slightest regret about killing that monster where he stood.

She'd gathered her resolve. She could resist it this time. What she'd attempted to do to the boy before the old man came in, she would never attempt again.

* * *

Poor Fritz! All tied up and helpless in the grasp of his frosty mistress! Fritz would just have to suffer through this somehow. He took a deep breath. He knew what was coming. Any minute now... Any minute now...

Several any-minute-nows passed.

"Your Majesty."

It was at this point that the snowbird returned, carrying a big bowl of hard chocolate pieces in its ice-talons. Elsa rested the bowl on her lap, then grabbed one of the pieces and slowly, cautiously placed it in her mouth. After a couple seconds of chewing, her eyes widened.

Elsa swallowed, then got out, "This is... _amazing_." For the first time since she'd gone crazy, Fritz saw a smile cross Elsa's face that didn't look completely psychotic.

"Uh, Elsa?" said Fritz, his voice trembling. "You, uh, weren't planning on doing the... _thing_ with me again, were you? Just asking out of... idle curiosity."

Elsa gaped at him like he was a madman. "There's _chocolate_ to eat," she said, matter-of-fact.

Well, Fritz couldn't argue with _that_...

Elsa let out a laugh, then ate another chocolate piece. Then another. Then another. At some point, she threw dignity to the wind and started tearing into them like the ravenous, chocolate-devouring beast she was. Look at her, smearing chocolate all over her lips, then lapping up every last drop with her tongue. It was disgusting! And yet... strangely sensual...

Fritz's stomach growled. He watched, entranced, as Elsa brought the final piece to her mouth. Fritz was about to ask if he could have that one, but then Elsa stuck out her tongue and licked every inch of it. Fritz stared at the spit-covered candy.

...Now he wanted it even more.

"This is the best thing I've ever tasted!" Elsa said once she polished off the final piece. "Bring me more!"

"I'm sorry, Your Majesty, but that's all there was," said the snowbird.

Elsa let out a huff of frustration, then flicked her hand, shooting out a gust of cold wind that shooed the bird out the room. She folded her arms and leaned back on her icy throne. "Now what do I do with myself?" she wondered aloud.

Fritz cleared his throat.

"What?" She glanced over at him.

"Nothing, nothing," mumbled Fritz. "Just had something in my... nothing..."

"Oh." Her attention returned to staring at the wall. An any-minute-now passed in silence.

"Um, Queen Elsa..." Fritz put on his most pitiful face. "Are you _sure_ you can't let me out of here? My arms are killing me. I swear I won't run away!"

Elsa jerked her head his way. "You swear?" she repeated. "And you swear to be my slave forever?"

Fritz let out a sigh. Being enslaved to Elsa, albeit a somewhat insane rendition of Elsa, wasn't the worst fate he could think of. "Yes, I swear."

All of a sudden, Elsa's smile reverted back to psychotic. "Well, then, shouldn't you be on your knees in the presence of your mistress?"

"Wait, wha-? Agh!"

A bolt of frost shattered the ice suspending Fritz from ceiling, causing him to plop onto the carpet. With his hands still frozen together, he found himself tumbling onto his back... and Elsa tumbling onto him.

There was a _thump_ as her bulbous hips collided with his weedy ones. Now Fritz was pinned to the ground, his hands and feet still frozen, with the Snow Queen's blushing face mere inches from his own.

"Elsa, wait, no-"

"What's wrong, little boy?" she whispered in his ear. "Don't you want to be of service to your queen?"

Fritz looked left to his shoulder angel.

_You know, legally, having her brain altered by magic is the same as being drunk_, it said. _She can't give consent_.

Fritz looked right to his shoulder devil.

_Hey, who are you to deny your civic duty?_ it said.

Luckily, Fritz's moral dilemma was solved for him by Elsa suddenly pulling away, her eyes wide with horror.

"What am I _doing_? You're just a little boy! Daniel did something to my head! I... I shouldn't want _this__!_ I shouldn't want you to be my slave..."

"Elsa, Elsa, it's okay-!" Fritz tried to calm her down, but he was a bit distracted. Elsa's breath was ice cold, and the places where her limbs touched his were going numb.

"This isn't me... This isn't me..." Her tears dripped onto Fritz's face, and, _youch_, they were so cold they burned.

It didn't matter if she was currently an unhinged psycho – Seeing Elsa cry made Fritz's heart ache. "It's okay, Elsa," he said soothingly. "Trust me, I know how it feels to be completely out-of-my mind obsessed with someone and then have to accept that you can't have them. You just have to look past it."

"You're right," said Elsa between gasps of air. "You're right. I understand what you're trying to tell me."

"Good. Now, why don't you get off me and go find your sister so you can thaw the eternal-"

"You're saying if we both feel this way, there's no sense denying our passions!"

"Wha-? _Mmph!_"

On the bright side, Fritz did get to taste that chocolate after all.

* * *

Hans sat motionless on the cell floor, staring at the mold on the wall. A violent shiver rocked his body. Man, he really should've kissed Anna before taunting her about his scheme. At the time, he'd figured denying her of it would be more insulting, but now Hans was going to freeze to death without ever having kissed a girl.

It was so unfair! Hans was gorgeous! All twelve of his brothers had wives and/or girlfriends! Why did everyone get to make out with some tramp except for him?

* * *

Elsa was making out with Fritz. _Elsa was making out with Fritz_. It should've been the greatest day of his life. The only problem was, Elsa happened to be slightly unhinged at the moment, so she had no control of her powers. The thought that flashed through Fritz's brain just before her lips collided with his was, _Wait, she can't even dress herself without freezing her- Uaaaaaaaaagh!_

The last time Elsa had kissed him, it'd numbed his lips for a couple minutes. This time, it set his entire face on fire. Not in the poetic "It was a really sexy kiss" sense. More of the "_Aaaaaaagh my face is on fire__!_" sense. And that wasn't all. Elsa grabbed Fritz's arms to steady herself while her tongue went spelunking, and the skin contact sent the limbs buzzing with pain. Fritz was screaming at the top of his lungs, but it was a bit muffled by Elsa's face.

_She's not that big! _said the small, logical part of Fritz's brain. _Quick, throw her off you before it's too late!_

Fritz was about to comply, but then Elsa unstuck her face from his and switched to planting little kisses down his neck.

_Forget what I just said!_ said Fritz's brain. _Keep doing exactly what you're doing now!_

Oh God. Oh God. Fritz couldn't move. The Snow Queen's power over him was absolute. Sure, everywhere her lips touched went numb shortly afterward, but for a precious few seconds, it felt _sooooo goooood_.

And then Elsa ran her fingers through his scalp, and the next thing he knew, Fritz was getting the absolute worst brain freeze of his life. He would've cried out in pain, except at that same moment, Elsa's lips found their way beneath his collarbone, which obviously meant that all was right with the world.

By now, the parts of Fritz's body that weren't numb were in agony, he had the beginnings of literal cold sores running down his neck, and _Elsa was making out with him! How was this not at all what Fritz wanted and yet EXACTLY WHAT HE WANTED?_

* * *

_Her lips were on his, and there was nothing but bliss... until Olive started screaming. _"_My arm! Daniel, my arm!" The frost was pouring out his fingertips and into her skin, turning it rotted and black with the cold._

The queen's eyes shot open the instant she felt the magic erupt from her hand. "No," she breathed. "_No!_"

Every strand of dark brown hair on the boy's head had turned solid white.

* * *

Come to think of it, "absolute worst brain freeze of his life" was kind of an understatement. This wasn't just a brain freeze. It was like... like Fritz's entire head was pulsing, and with each pulse, it grew colder and more painful. It kind of reminded him of... of the time his heart had frozen.

The difference was, this was happening faster. A _lot_ faster.

_It's finally happened_, said Fritz's freezing cold brain. _Your unhealthy obsession with the queen got you killed. Y'hear me, you moron? Unless you know someone who can erase your memories of magic in the next two minutes, you're DEAD! DEAD! _

Plenty of spots on the outside of Fritz's body had already gone numb, but those were only skin deep. Now a... a _total_ numbness was starting in his toes... and creeping up his legs.

_I hope it was worth it, idiot! _screamed his brain. _I HOPE IT WAS WORTH IT! _

Then the numbness crept up past Fritz's pelvis, and suddenly it was like veil was lifted. He looked at Elsa and didn't see an unspeakable gorgeous woman. He saw a tortured soul staring at him in utter horror. Elsa had thrown herself off of Fritz, but it was way too late.

_You know what you just did? You just proved everything your dad ever said about you right. You _are_ a loser._

"Elsa, I... I..." Fritz tried to move an arm, to reach out for her, but with a pang he realized that he couldn't feel it. In fact... he could hardly feel anything. Even his voice was going.

"I'm... sor...ry..."

He should've known this would happen. Should've known from the instant he walked in that door and first laid eyes on her. Sure, she wasn't screaming "You FOOL! You have FAILED ME!" right now, but everything else was pretty much covered. Fritz's mistake had been in assuming just because Elsa was gorgeous... just because she was kind and caring and perfect... that his life would turn out any differently.

Fritz's eyes only wavered from Elsa for a second to glance down at his boots, which now seemed to be made of ice. His eyeballs were apparently the last part of Fritz to go – He couldn't even smile – so he tried to give Elsa what he hoped was a loving gaze. He still loved her, of course. Always.

Wasn't... her fault... It was all _his_... Good things simply didn't come to... Fritz... Herman... Gud...

* * *

There was an ice-statue where the boy had once stood. Where the one person in all the world who would never hurt her had once stood.

"Boy?" Elsa said faintly. "Boy...?"

The ice-statue did not respond. It only looked at her with what the boy had hoped was a loving gaze.

"Boy..." She fell to her knees.

The next second, the room was rocked by a blizzard that belonged in the middle of the Ice Age, not the middle of the throne room.

"_Fritz!_"

And the second after that, the snowstorm came to a halt. Every last snowflake hung suspended in the air. It was so clear now. She'd had it all backwards. The reason the entire world wanted to hurt her wasn't because _everybody else_ was a monster.


	66. Protecting Anna

A flood of able-bodied men were storming out the Arendelle chapel, fighting through the freezing wind to reach the munitions warehouse. All of them were prepared to face down a monstrous Snow Queen, but only one also had to face down a grumpy reindeer.

"Sven!"

The reindeer threw himself in front of the door, blocking his best friend's path, and gave him a stare that said he wasn't angry at Kristoff, just disappointed. Even Snowball gave Kristoff a disapproving squeak from the back of Sven's saddle.

"You've got the wrong idea, buddy," sighed Kristoff. "I'm _not_ gonna help that Klaus jerk try and kill Elsa. I..." He bowed his head. "I can't really stop him, and I see where he's coming from, but I draw the line at _helping_ him."

Now Sven just looked confused.

"But if a whole mob's coming to attack the castle, Elsa and her snowmen might be distracted long enough for me to sneak in," said Kristoff. "This could be our best bet to rescue Anna. I mean, if Elsa dragged her into the castle in shackles, that..." He bowed his head. "...doesn't bode well for Anna's chances of making her see reason."

Sven nodded, then stepped forward to nuzzle his buddy.

"No, you can't come with me, Sven," said Kristoff, allowing himself the tiniest of smiles. "It's gonna be dangerous. Last time we ran to the castle to save Anna, you almost drowned, remember?"

The reindeer pouted, then blocked the doorway again.

Kristoff let out a resigned sigh. "Alright, buddy, alright. I guess you can come. Maybe we're gonna need a noble steed for a quick escape, right? Just be careful, okay?"

And with that, the boy, reindeer, and walking snowball exited the church. You couldn't tell from its featureless face, but Snowball was giving Kristoff a look that said it was sorry for judging him for talking to his reindeer earlier.

* * *

A little girl tumbling to the ballroom floor, her body growing ice cold. A grown woman on a frozen harbor, a sword through her gut. Sitting in her bedroom, bawling hysterically after a servant tells her something about a boat. A little girl sitting beneath an oak tree, the snow piling up at her feet.

Her boy, every inch of him replaced with ice, the pain frozen on his face.

By the time the queen's thoughts grew coherent enough for her to call a Marshmallow into the room, the snow was up to her ankles. When the snowman spotted the ice-statue, the his eye-holes widened.

"Mama?" he said faintly.

"Hide this." The queen's voice was barely audible. "Don't let anyone see it."

The snowman stepped towards her. "Mama-"

"_I gave you an order!_"

Marshmallow looked like he might cry, but he didn't argue. He put his claws around the statue and heaved it over his shoulder, then trudged out the door.

With the statue finally, mercifully out of sight, the queen could resume lying on the floor in a fetal position and never moving again. Her fault... It was her fault... She'd given into Daniel's brainwashing... forced herself on this defenseless boy like an animal... He'd been _screaming in pain_ as she kissed him.

The queen shut her eyes. _Fritz_. A hazy image flickered through her mind before disappearing. Even if she didn't remember why, this boy had been _important_ to her. Just like the chocolate or... or her parents. A discontinuity.

Another image flickered through. _You really are a monster. And here I thought I loved you._

That's what she was. That's why the world wanted to hurt her and lie to her. No sense denying the truth.

* * *

Had anyone entered the dungeon right now, they'd have seen a pigtail-wearing girl huddled up under a quilt and cuddling with a girl who'd pass for her sister if said girl wasn't made of ice. Mary's sobs had finally quieted, and now she was simply hugging Anna, her face buried in her shoulder.

Anna found herself smiling. For once, she was glad to be wrong about someone. She'd been getting more than a little sick of seemingly nice people turning out to be jerks, so the other way around was a welcome change.

But then Anna found herself shivering.

"I'm sorry." Mary immediately wrenched herself out of Anna's grasp. "You shouldn't be holding me. I'm too cold."

Anna let out a sigh. "Yeah, you take after your mom, alright."

Mary frowned. "My... mom?"

"Elsa. That sounds like something she'd say." Anna stared off into space wistfully. "Well, something she'd say if her memories weren't all screwed up..."

"Elsa is my... my mother?"

Anna nodded. "She made you, didn't she? You're pretty much her child."

Now Mary was the one staring off into space. "But she isn't treating me like her child." She bowed her head. "Not like her other snowmen. After everything I did, everything Daniel made me do... she'll never trust me again."

"Mary, I told you, Elsa's just confused." Mary tried to back away, but she couldn't escape Anna's hug. "You're part of our family no matter what, so you don't have to worry about nobody loving you anymore." She put her hands around Mary's waist, helping her sit up.

"But Elsa's mind is still ruined," said Mary. "How can we be a family if she never lets us out of this dungeon?"

"Well, Elsa was almost listening to reason before you showed up and we started arguing. And we've buried the hatchet, right? Let's call Elsa in here and explain everything to her. Then we can get her to calm down, remember love thaws, and _boom_, the winter's over."

"You're right." Mary rose to her feet, then walked to the cell door. She pounded on the metal. "Hello? Brother?"

"Mary?" came the snowbird's voice from the other side.

"Can you tell Elsa..." Mary took a deep breath. "...I'm ready to confess? I was the liar. Anna was telling the truth."

* * *

When that overgrown snowball had dragged Anders out the throne room, he'd dropped his cane. And so, thanks to the lovely stab wound Mary had given him, Anders was back to not walking. Anders had only crawled about halfway down the entrance hall when the overgrown snowball returned, dragging something behind him.

"What have you got there?" Anders asked wearily as he struggled to lift his torso off the carpet. "A present for me? You really shouldn't have. I've had so many nice things happen to me already."

Marshmallow let out a troubled grunt and hid the large, mysterious object behind his back.

"I'm _crippled_, not _blind_," said Anders. "You'd better not be trying to bring something filthy into the castle. It might have been plunged into anarchy, but that doesn't mean this palace shouldn't stay tidy."

Marshmallow made an attempt to hide the thing in the hall closet, but he didn't have the daintiest of fingers. The object tipped over, nearly smashing into the floor, but luckily Marshmallow was poised enough to catch it. This did, however, reveal it to Anders.

The old man paled. "Please don't tell me that used to be a person," he said faintly.

The snowman bowed his colossal head solemnly. He made another attempt to stuff the Fritz-cicle into the closet, but this only caused a mop to overturn and smash into its fingers. An ice-pinky chipped off and bounced to the floor.

Marshmallow gasped, then hurriedly re-attached Fritz's severed finger, blowing on it gently with his blizzard-breath to freeze back into place. There. Good as new.

* * *

Anna hated to admit it, but Elsa was looking a lot less like her sister and a lot more like a crazy sorceress. Currently, Elsa was standing in the cell doorway, her posture rigid. Her face would've been a perfect blank if not for her red, puffy eyes. Anna wanted more than anything to give her sister a big hug, tell her everything would be alright, and maybe make her change out of that skeevy dress Daniel had given her, but Anna knew better than to make any sudden movements when Elsa was already freaked out.

"So you were the liar all along." Elsa kept her voice perfectly level.

Mary had dropped to her hands and knees before her creator, her lip trembling. "Yes. I was jealous. Jealous of what the two of you had."

Elsa took this in silently.

"But Mary never tried to hurt you!" Anna added. "It was all Daniel. He messed with Mary's head, kinda like what he did to you."

Elsa's eyes fell on her snowwoman. "You lied to me."

"I know nothing can make up for what I've done," said Mary. "All I can do is beg for forgiveness. I only want what you've given your other creations: your love. And I want you to love Anna, too. We're a family. I have your memories, Elsa. I saw them when I overthrew your mind. I _know _you and Anna love each other."

Anna nearly did a pratfall, and she'd been standing totally still. "Hold up! Oh my God, Elsa, I just realized – Mary's, like, Olaf's counterpart, right? Maybe we can use _her_ as the anchor point thingy!"

But her epiphany was ignored. "_You lied to me_," Elsa repeated.

"I did then, but I'm not now." Mary crawled forward, wrapping her arms around Elsa's legs. "Elsa, I love you. I'll never hurt you again. You're... You're my mama."

A swift kick sent Mary tumbling backwards. She cried out more from shock than any real pain.

"You're not my child," said Elsa.

Mary's face fell. "I... I understand." Her eyes clamped shut. "Of course you don't want me. Why would you?"

But then Mary opened her eyes to find Elsa outstretching an arm.

"What are you-?"

"You're my _creatio__n. _And you'll never hurt me again."

Seeing that look of utter horror on an exact replica of her own face made it _so much_ worse. Anna could do nothing but watch as Mary's fingertips dissolved into snowflakes.

"Elsa, wait!" Anna ran to Mary's side as if that could help. "We need Mary to fix your memories!"

"You can't do this to me!" The agony in her voice sent a shiver down Anna's spine. Mary was flailing around in a blind panic, her arms growing shorter and shorter as more and more snowflakes slipped off and spread about the room.

Elsa was taking her apart piece by piece.

"It can't happen again!" Mary screamed, tears streaming down her face. "Elsa, please! _Please__!_"

"Elsa, _stop it__!_" yelled Anna. "Mary won't hurt you!"

In her panic, Mary gave up on Elsa and turned to Anna. With hardly any limbs left, there wasn't much she could do but lean against Anna's chest and whisper, "Anna, help me! Help me! I can't go back to nothingness!"

But a freezing wind sent her tumbling across the cell.

"Don't touch my sister." Elsa clenched her hand into a fist.

Mary gave Anna one last pitiful stare. Her face was the last thing to go, and her cries lingered for a second even after the final snowflake had scattered on the wind.

For a minute, Anna stared at the empty spot where a person had once stood.

"Elsa," she breathed. "Mary was harmless. You... You killed her."

"What?" Elsa stepped back, her eyes growing wider. "No, you told me to do it. This is what you wanted."

Anna gave herself a mental kick. "Yeah, I did, didn't I? Well, I was being stupid back then. Bring Mary back! She didn't deserve that."

"No, I won't recreate her!" snapped Elsa. "She's dangerous. I won't let her hurt you."

"She's not dangerous _anymore__!_"

Elsa clutched her forehead. "I believe you when you say _you_ won't hurt me. Isn't that enough?"

Anna let out a sigh. "Alright, alright. Maybe you can remake Mary later. Let's just focus on getting you calmed down for now. If you know I love you, you can control your powers. That's what 'love will thaw' means." Anna held out her arms, but Elsa jolted backwards.

"No! You can't touch me! I'll hurt you!"

Anna could see the panic in Elsa's eyes. She reluctantly pulled away. "Okay, okay... We'll take it slow if you want, but we'll have your powers under control soon, I promise."

Elsa nodded. But then she noticed Anna shivering. "We should go somewhere warmer," she said. "Follow me."

Elsa marched up the dungeon stairs to the slightly less freezing part of the castle, Anna trailing behind her. The two of them came to a stop in Anna's bedroom.

"Get under the covers." When Anna complied, Elsa asked, "Are you warm enough now? Is there anything else you need?"

"I'm good, thanks," said Anna. "Now, why don't you go ahead and try to undo your eternal winter?" But as she spoke, Elsa made for the door. "Wait, where are you going?"

"I'm... getting you more quilts," said Elsa, keeping her back turned. "Stay where you are."

"Oh, okay."

But the instant Elsa was out of the room, Anna caught the sound of a slamming door.

"Hey!" she cried, pouncing out of bed. "What are you-?"

"I'm sorry." Before Anna could grab the knob, the door's cracks were filled with ice. "I can't hurt you again. This is the only way to keep you safe."

"You can't trap me in here forever!"

"I'll have my snowmen take care of you," came Elsa's voice from the other side. "If I can trust them... If they're not all like Mary..."

Anna pounded on the door with all her might, but it wouldn't budge. "You don't have to do this, Elsa! I swear, if you just let yourself get close to me, you can control your-"

"It doesn't matter if I can control my powers!" Elsa's voice was so much harsher than normal, Anna jerked back from the door in surprise. "All that matters is _you__!_ You..." She faltered. "...you matter more than I do. My life's worth nothing."

"That's not true," Anna said softly.

"If I let you close to me, you'll die. Just like everyone else. You're all I have left. I'm sorry."

Anna's pulse pounded in her ears. "But what about all the other people in Arendelle? If you don't stop your winter, _they'll_ be the ones who die!"

"They don't matter, either."

"_What__?_ You don't mean that!" Anna found herself pounding on the door even harder. "What about Kristoff? What about Fritz?"

"_Fritz is dead._"

The pounding came to an abrupt stop.

"W-What...?"

"He's dead, okay?" Elsa's harshness had vanished entirely. "So... you're wrong... Even if I care about someone, I can still hurt them."

For the first time in three years, Anna didn't feel the least bit headstrong or feisty. "Elsa, I..." All of a sudden, thinking straight was a lot harder. "No, that... can't be right... You wouldn't..."

"I understand if you don't love me anymore."

And then the other shoe dropped, and the headstrength and feistiness came flooding back all at once. Next thing she knew, Anna was hitting the door with everything she had, screaming at the top of her lungs:

"_I don't care if I have to risk my life a million times for you! Open this door right now!_"

Somehow, Anna knew the response before it even hit her ears. "I'm sorry, Anna."

"Elsa, it's not..." Anna _hated_ crying. Crying was like giving up. "...not your fault. It's all Daniel's..."

For a minute, the only sound on either side of the door was sniffling. Then Anna caught the sound of footsteps. "Elsa, wait!" she called after her. "We have to stop this before anyone else gets hurt! I know how to fix your memories!"

The footsteps quieted.

"Well, not exactly, since without Mary, I don't know what to use for the anchor point thingy," said Anna. "But maybe you can make her or Olaf again once your powers are under control. So, really, all we need to fix your head is to find someone else who knows magic. Brandr said there was more magic in Arendelle than you'd think, didn't he? Or, y'know, maybe we could find someone outside Arendelle. We still have all of Dad's old books. He found the trolls with those, didn't he? Maybe we could-"

"I'm not leaving Arendelle, and I'm not letting anyone tamper with my mind again," cut in Elsa. "We're staying in our castle. Nobody will ever hurt us here."

"But your memories-"

"_I don't want my memories!_"

The words reverberated through the wood. Anna finally caved in and let her cheeks grow wet.

"Okay, Elsa... Okay... you win... We don't have to fix your head... Just open the door. Please. We... We can make you _new_ memories together... and then, when you see how much I love you, you'll control your powers again... and you'll see the whole world doesn't want to hurt you."

There was long silence. It was broken by the doorknob jiggling. The door couldn't actually open thanks to the ice, but it was still a reassuring gesture.

"I want to believe you," came Elsa's slow, cautious voice. "I want to be wrong... wrong about the world... but I _know_ I'm a monster, Anna."

"You're _not__!_ Daniel was the monster! He tried to make you as pathetic and miserable as he was, but that's just not you. I can prove it if you just open the door."

More silence. Anna found herself taking a deep breath.

"And... nobody will try to hurt me?" said Elsa.

"Nobody, I promise!"

"Okay..." Now Anna heard Elsa taking a deep breath of her own. "I'll summon a snowman to rip the ice off."

Anna laughed in relief. "Oh, thank God, you're seeing straight. Elsa, I love you _so much_. I'm going to help you get better, I swear. And then you'll see that nobody's trying to hurt you. It's all in your-"

"Your Majesty!" But then Anna caught the noise of wings fluttering, coupled with the formal voice of a snowbird. "There's an armed mob at the gates!"

"_What__?_"

Anna's heart picked up speed. "Elsa, wait, maybe they're not-"

"_I'll protect you, Anna!_"

"Okay, but you can't-"

Elsa's footsteps were already growing fainter.

"-hurt them."


	67. Last Stand

Anna was an old pro at opening doors. She could pick locks, jimmy doorknobs, unscrew hinges, the works. She would've opened Elsa's bedroom door years ago, except that picked locks had meant getting sent to bed with no supper, jimmied doorknobs had meant getting no dessert for a week, and unscrewed hinges had meant getting grounded for a month. And that _still_ wouldn't have stopped Anna except that the maids had tended to catch her in the act, meaning for all her trouble, Anna hadn't even gotten to glimpse her sister for a precious few seconds.

But there was one method even Anna had had the common sense not to try. A method that would've brought the entire palace running and gotten her grounded from then until the day she died.

"Aaaaaaaagh-!"

_Slam._

Anna's shoulder smashed into her bedroom door at full force, sending the walls shaking from the impact. Then Anna picked herself up, took a few steps back, and charged again like a pigtail-wearing bull.

_Slam._

The frame had cracked long ago, and Anna's shoulder felt like rubber, but the thick layer of ice kept the door firmly in place.

"Agh! I hate you! _I hate you, y'hear me_?" Anna screamed at the unmoved hunk of wood. "Who invented doors anyways? They're stupid! _Stupid__!_"

_Slam._

It was no good. Anna's arms were gonna fall off before she broke through. She forced herself to take some steady breaths. _Calm down, calm down, no need to panic..._

Anna just needed a plan B, that was all. Her eyes searched the room. The bedroom should've been familiar and comfortable, but somehow the present situation made it seem eerie. She saw her unmade bed, the stain on the carpet from where she's spilled grape juice on the same spot on no less than three separate occasions, the daylight streaming through the gigantic window, the bookshelf where _Marriage in Misthaven_ lay half-open...

Anna did a double-take. Oh, _duh__. __She'd just bruised her shoulder for nothing._ Anna had climbed out her bedroom window all the time as a kid! Sure, she'd risked slipping off the side of the castle and breaking her neck, but how else was she supposed to have gotten on the other side of Elsa's bedroom window to make funny faces at her? And Anna had only gotten the punishment equivalent of, like, five unscrewed hinges. Totally worth it.

"Yes! I love windows! They're _way_ better than doors!" Anna smirked at the door as if she was making sure it'd heard her.

She dashed to the window and threw it open, but before Anna could so much as stick her head out, a sheet of jagged ice sprang up, covering every inch of empty space. Anna tumbled back, yelping in surprise. Elsa's ice was crawling over the walls like it had a mind of its own, just like after Olaf had saved Anna from freezing in the library, only this time the ice was _stopping_ Anna from jumping out a window. It must've been obeying Elsa's subconscious desires or something.

Anna let out a cry of frustration. Don't panic, don't panic, she repeated to herself. This was no big deal. If she couldn't escape, then, well, that just gave Anna more time to come up with a plan to fix Elsa's brain. Anna plopped herself on her bed. If she was gonna be prisoner in her own room, she might as well get comfy.

Okay, okay, let's see... First things first, they were gonna need another snowman since Olaf and Mary were... were... Anna shivered. They weren't dead, she reminded herself. It was more like they were... on vacation. Once Elsa got her memories back, she'd remake them good as new. But in the meantime, Anna would have to settle on another "anchor point." She just wasn't sure what, exactly. Daniel's stupid ice-rose had been an anchor point too, kinda, but Anna was pretty sure Grand Pabbie had said the anchor needed to be something important to that person, not important to somebody else...

The image of snow-monsters pouncing on a helpless old troll flashed through Anna's mind, but she fought it back down. Even if they found an anchor point, they'd still have to find someone else who knew magic, and Elsa didn't seem too keen on leaving the castle. In fact, right now, Elsa was defending the castle from attackers, so... either they were going to kill her... or they were all gonna end up like Fritz.

_Nope__!_ Nope nope nope! Fritz was still alive and well! He had to be! Elsa probably just made a crazy mistake, and in a while Fritz would wake up or come out of hiding or whatever, and they'd all laugh about his latest wacky misadventure. That... That cute kid with the silly crush on Elsa... _had_ to be alive...

In the same way her parents ship had _had_ to have simply been blown off course, and it'd _had_ to pull in to harbor any day now.

Anna found her head digging into her pillow. She was shivering harder, but Anna couldn't find the strength to pull the covers over herself.

Elsa had just... blurted it out. _Fritz is dead_. Was... was _all_ the bad news Anna was about to hear going to be so sudden?

_It's not like you get a warning..._

Anna was dimly aware that she ought to be scouring the bedroom for something to use as an anchor point, but instead she found herself curling up on her bed and weeping.

* * *

Cloud and Cottonball were about as close to invincible as anything could get. Thanks to the eternal winter, they didn't have to worry about melting even without their personal flurries, and they were incapable of feeling pain. Nobody had ever truly threatened them save for Brandr, and he was long gone. They should've had nothing to worry about.

And yet the horde of armed men storming the gates perturbed them.

"_G__o away__!_"

The snowmen blasted as much cold air from their mouths as they could, but the men fell back, meaning only a couple of them so much as got their torches extinguished. The men were armed with much more than just torches, of course – They had a whole collection of crossbows, swords, rifles, and muskets – but it was the flames that bothered the snowmen the most. Unlike their eldest brother, Cloud and Cottonball weren't too anxious to feel heat.

"_Keep your torches burning!_" the man at the head of the army bellowed. It was Admiral Klaus on horseback, brandishing a pillar of fire above his head. A couple snowbirds took their monster-forms and swooped at the crowd, but they were driven away by the wall of flames.

The twin snowmen stood shoulder to shoulder, blocking off the gates and snarling at the intruders. They were kind of hoping the men would give up and leave, but instead Klaus turned to the crowd and yelled, "Now!"

A wooden barrel rolled over the cobblestone, coming to a halt by the snowmen's feet. They glanced downwards, confused. There seemed to be black powder seeping out the barrel's cracks. Cloud raised his head just in time to see a torch sailing through the air directly towards them. He connected the dots about a second before the deafening explosion.

Cloud and Cottonball weren't killed, of course. They were just a lot less threatening as a bunch of little pieces splattered across the ground, wriggling like worms. A cheer rang out from the mob.

"Sven, go!" As soon as the snowmen were safely incapacitated, a boy and a sentient snowball atop a reindeer seized the chance to dash through the gates and into the castle. A couple of soldiers tried to follow, but Klaus stopped them.

"No need to go to her," he said. "She's coming to us." He pointed skyward.

Miles above, a dark figure was floating off the edge of the balcony from the castle's ice-tower and heading towards the gates at a leisurely pace. Even from a distance, there was no mistaking her – It was the Snow Queen, her hair and dress billowing in the wind she created. The queen had even, apparently, added on a dark blue ice-cape.

The queen touched down between the army and the remains of her snowmen. The instant her heels hit the ground, a shockwave of cold air extinguished every last drop of fire. The queen fixed her eyes on the mob.

"You hurt my children," she said. "I'm giving you one chance to leave my home."

Klaus threw his useless torch aside, then drew his musket. "End the winter!" He aimed at her face.

The queen stared down the barrel, unflinching. "I can't."

"Then you leave us no choice. I'm sorry." Klaus inhaled. "_Everyone, open fire!_"

In the history books of Arendelle, the actions of Admiral Klaus and his men would forever be immortalized as "Klaus's Last Stand," one of the most memorable battles in the country's long history. The participants were honored for their selfless acts of heroism, risking their lives in the defense of their country even in the face of insurmountable odds.

Countless projectile weapons congregated on one target. Fingers squeezed triggers. A much faster set of fingers crackled with magic. Not a single gunshot was heard that day.

Klaus's Last Stand lasted three seconds.

* * *

It'd taken a bit of shouting and a heaping helping of smart remarks, but Anders had eventually persuaded the queen's giant snow monster to bring him his cane and help him hobble to the door. Anders may have been old, but he wasn't deaf. He'd heard the commotion outside loud and clear.

Right now, Anders's cynicism was in a battle with his optimism. The optimism was insisting that everything would work out perfectly and everybody would be blissfully happy in the end, while his cynicism was arguing that if the queen had just frozen that boy she was so close to, the angry mob of people threatening to kill her probably weren't about to receive much better treatment. But no matter how much more reasonable the cynicism sounded, the optimism still had a hold on Anders's mind. Uncomfortable truths just aren't as appealing as comfortable lies, even for a bitter old man. But in the end, it didn't matter which one he believed because reality doesn't care what anyone thinks. It's _reality_.

Anders limped his way through the courtyard, a big, snowy hand on his back helping him keep pace. Anders and Marshmallow came to a rest just outside the open gates.

Cold. That was the first thing Anders felt. The snow went well above his ankles, and the wind stabbed him much harder than Mary ever could. But the road directly in front of the gates was different. It didn't look like it'd seen a snowstorm. It looked like it'd seen the icy-equivalent of a volcanic eruption, complete with its own Pompeii.

Statues. Countless statues of ice. The battle was its own memorial. Swords were held high. Bullets and arrows were halted mid-flight, connected to their barrels and bows by little lines of ice. Towards the back, a couple people were trapped in running postures, facing towards the town, looks of horror forever etched on their faces. Meanwhile, Admiral Klaus's face held total confidence. He hadn't even had time to be surprised.

And at the front of the serene carnage, a woman with a dark, twisting cape and wild, messy hair stood with her back to Anders, shoulders heaving. At the sound of his and Marshmallow's footsteps, she slowly turned around.

Elsa's face was marred by a grin. "They couldn't hurt me." Her voice shook with laughter. "They tried their hardest, but they couldn't hurt me. Nobody can hurt me."

Something was bubbling inside Anders's chest. It probably should've been something like sadness, revulsion, horror... but it wasn't. It was anger.

Anders's eyes fell on a pair of ice-statues in the courtyard – not ones that had formerly been people. "They would be _so_ proud." He didn't sound deadpan. He just sounded dead.

The grin vanished. Elsa's eyes followed his to the statues. "My... parents?" Confusion crossed her face. "But... I kept us safe."

"I don't know what I was expecting when we first discovered your magic, but it wasn't for you to _freeze everyone to death_."

"They were going to hurt me!" snapped Elsa.

"Yes, they were," said Anders. "And why do you think that is?"

"Because I'm a monster."

"And why are you a monster?"

"Because I kill!"

"Seems awfully circular, doesn't it?"

Elsa's face contorted into a scowl. "What are you saying? That _I_ should die?"

"I don't know, should you?" Anders shot her a scowl of his own. "Do you think your life's worth more than the lives of _every other person in Arendelle__?_"

Her face softened. "No, it's not," she said. "But Anna's is. I have to protect her."

"By locking her away from the world?" Anders shut his eyes. "For God's sake, don't make your parents' mistakes, Elsa. Believe me, I'll be the first to tell you your mother and father were the greatest people I knew, but they made mis-"

"They locked me away!" The winds picked up, sending snow swirling across the frozen battlefield. "They hurt me! They hurt Anna!"

"_They were trying to help you!_" Anders voice wasn't exactly dead anymore. "_They didn't know what on earth they were supposed to do, but they were still trying to help you! That's what I'm doing now! That's what I've been doing ever since Arendelle thawed and I realized you weren't hopeless! I spent a decade watching this family unravel while I did nothing, and I'm not doing it again!_"

Elsa stepped back, her eyes wide and fearful as if a screaming old man could pose a legitimate threat. "Stop yelling." She sounded like she was eight again.

"_I don't know what else to do! I'm yelling because I don't know what else to do! I don't know how to undo whatever that sorcerer did, but I can at least make you see reason! I can at least make you see right from wrong! However I can, I'm going to fix you!_"

* * *

_Fix you. _The words pulsed through her head. _Fix you. Fix you. _She was looking at a harmless old man, but all she could see was sunken yellow eyes and skin stretched so tightly it looked like a skull.

_I will fix you, Elsa, one liar at a time._

"No!" Her heart was beating faster. "No!"

_Bound by chains, screaming as she watched her memories slip away one by one..._

"Nobody's tampering with my mind again!"

"Elsa, if you don't open yourself up, you'll never-"

"_I don't need to be fixed!_" It seemed like such a meaningless gesture in the moment. Just a little flourish of her arm.

The old man stumbled backwards, clutching his chest. His gray hair was turning white as snow, and it was happening _fast_. Even faster than Fritz's.

The queen didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "You can't hurt me, either," she said. "Nobody can hurt me."

The old man didn't respond. He couldn't. He was already ice. Elsa decided on laughing. It was just a small chuckle at first, but then it grew and grew until her sides hurt.

"_Mama__?_" The way Marshmallow was looking at her... it wasn't the way a child should look at their mother. There was too much fear.

The queen's laughter came to a halt, and suddenly she wasn't sure what she'd found so funny in the first place. She looked back at the ice-statue that had once been the old man. For a moment, she was silent. Then she walked towards her snowman. Marshmallow knelt down and allowed her to put her arms around his neck.

He was made of snow. She couldn't possibly hurt him. Not like the others.

"It's okay," she told Marshmallow, stroking the side of his face. "I have you. We're safe." The queen ended the embrace, then turned back to the front of the gates, where bits of snow were still wriggling about. With a wave of her hands, the queen reformed Cloud and Cottonball, then hugged them, too.

"I thought hiding in our castle would keep us safe," the queen told her children. "I was wrong. These people attacked us in our home." She turned towards the road leading to town. "We can't ignore them any longer."

A gust of freezing wind passed over them, turning her children into snowflakes. And with that, the queen rose into the air.

* * *

Most of the people in Arendelle's capital had enough sense not to be outside in the middle of a snowstorm, but when they saw the dark shape growing larger in the sky, many of them also had the sense to head for the hills. Unfortunately, the fleeing hordes of people barely made it a few feet through the blizzard before walls of ice cut them off. The storm winds were herding people into the town square like cattle. Once a sizable crowd of citizens had been trapped this way, the Snow Queen landed in the center of town beside a statue still overturned from the last time her snowmen had rampaged through here. With a wave of her arms, the queen called down her snowflakes, which promptly formed into three snowmen and a handful of monster-snowbirds. Cloud and Cottonball obediently roared at the panicked citizens, but Marshmallow simply frowned and gave his creator a sad stare.

"People of Arendelle!" The queen forced herself to speak in a loud, clear voice. There were countless eyes fixed on her, and every last one wanted to hurt her. She skimmed the crowd. It didn't matter if they were hulking thugs, scrawny children, or even that pregnant brunette girl cowering behind her husband. They _all_ wanted to hurt the queen. They _all_ wanted to kill the monster. And so she couldn't afford to show fear.

"The army you sent to kill me failed," said the queen. "You can find their frozen bodies just outside the castle gates." Cries of horror rang out through the crowd. "You won't be trying to hurt me ever again. I am your ruler. I will not be defied." She held out her arms. The citizens recoiled in fear, but with the ice walls around them, there was no escape. All they could do was hold each other and shriek. "Which is why my children will be ensuring you stay in line."

A thick, white fog erupted from the Snow Queen's fingertips and spread itself over the crowd, who watched in panicked silence. After a minute, shapes began to emerge from the clouds. The crowd's silence was replaced with screams. There were dozens of new snowmen of all shapes and sizes. Some were monstrous like Marshmallow, some were slender with icicles for arms like the ones Mary had made, and some were snowbirds, more than doubling the size of the flock.

The army of snowmen marched through the streets as fleeing citizens cleared their path.

"Consider these your new police." The queen overlooked her work contently. Then she turned the original three snowmen and a handful of the new ones into snowflakes on the wind and flew off with them, headed for the castle.

Everything seemed so much clearer now. Just because these people saw her as a monster didn't mean the Snow Queen had to be alone. She had children. All the children she could ever want. Children who would love her unconditionally, who would never freeze at her touch. And if they ever tried to hurt her, they would simply share Mary's fate.

And so, in that light, the Snow Queen's fellow humans – if she could even consider herself one of them – didn't seem quite so necessary. But so long as her snowmen were policing them, the queen saw no harm in keeping them alive. Besides, it would only be for a while longer. Her winter was growing stronger, and they were only mortals.

* * *

Citizens couldn't turn their heads without seeing a snow-creature. Big, monstrous ones marched through the streets, thin, icy ones crawled on the walls of buildings like spiders, and every drop of empty space was roosted on by a snowbird. Of course, none of the snow-monsters actually outright attacked anybody, but when a mob of people is panicked out of its mind, that sort of detail isn't really important.

The last time there'd been an eternal winter, most citizens had heard from a friend of a friend who'd attended the coronation that the queen had totally revealed herself as an evil sorceress and frozen the fjords as part of an evil plot to get revenge for something or other, but hardly any of them had actually gotten to see this evil sorceress in person. And the giant snow-monster Prince Hans had battled had been more an interesting topic of small talk than a terrifying beast. Of course, most things _aren't_ truly terrifying until they march right past your bedroom window.

The town's new status as a snowmen-run police state didn't inspire a great deal of calm, rational reactions. Whereas before people had resorted to cowering in their houses to escape the weather, now they were trying to leave their houses and flee the country, then coming to the horrible realizations that the queen had frozen the ocean, too, and according to word of mouth, the eternal winter had already breached the borders of Arendelle's neighbors.

Every last man, woman, and child in Arendelle had been reduced to running around like chickens with their heads cut off. And by the looks of things, they would've remained that way forever if a calm, smug voice hadn't suddenly resonated throughout the streets. A voice that was mysteriously perfectly audible to every single person as if it was addressing them face to face.

"Oh, you poor, dumb Arendellians. You had every chance to avoid this, y'know."

The people who hadn't yet fled the town square stopped to gape at the sight before them.

"No way!"

"Is that...?"

"Impossible!"

"I hate to say I told you so," said the voice. "But I-"

"It talks!" screamed a random man. He seemed even more upset at the newcomer than he did at the army of snowmen. "It talks! _It's a talking horse!_"

The white stallion gave the man a dry stare.

"Yes, I'm a talking horse," said Olympus. "You should win an award for being that perceptive."


	68. A True Hero Returns

Arendelle's new army of snowmen all looked a bit confused. Their creator had instructed them to act at the first sign that citizens were planning to hurt her again, but they weren't really sure if a talking horse qualified.

By now, several people were braving the snowstorm and monster-snowmen to investigate the source of the strange voice in their heads. The white horse overlooked the crowd, making a face that would look annoyingly smug on a person, but on a horse it just looked freakish.

"Hey, you," Olympus said to the random man from before. "Since you're clearly the smart one around here, why don't you do me a favor? Reach into my saddle pouch." The man looked like he'd like to protest, but he knew better than to say no to a talking horse. He slowly, cautiously, walked to Olympus's saddle, dipped his hand in the pouch, and retrieved a glowing red crystal.

Suddenly, inky smoke erupted from the gem, causing the man to drop it and flee to the safety of the crowd. Before the crystal could hit the ground, it was caught by a tall, dark man with dark hair, a dark hat, and a dark jacket.

Olympus gave the faerie a look that said, "Never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever _ever_ possess my body again."

"Phew! Never thought I'd miss being bipedal so much," said Brandr, admiring his opposable thumbs. "Man, was that a close one. Good thing I kept a fragment of my soul handy inside my associate here or I'd be a goner." He turned his attention to the crowd. "Okay, sheeple, according to Fae law, I'm supposed to be getting tortured for all eternity right now, so we're gonna have to make this snappy."

He held up the red crystal for all to see.

"This is an antimagic seed. Just dump a little human hatred into this thing, and it'll sprout into whatever doohickey I need to kill Her Queeniness for you. I assume you chumps at least have enough brain cells to accept my offer now that you're all, y'know, freezing to death in the exact manner I said you'd be."

Uneasy faces passed through the crowd.

"And in return, you want all the magic in Arendelle?" said a woman.

"Frankly, I think Arendelle could use a little less magic right about now, don't you think?" said Brandr. There was murmured agreement. "So whattya say, Arendellians? Do we have a deal, or do we have a deal?"

It was around the time that the mob of people started glowing bright red that the snowmen realized that, yes, a talking horse did indeed qualify. But by the time they moved towards the commotion, the red energy had already started pouring out from the crowd and into the crystal. The stone floated into the air, twisting and stretching until one end came to a sharpened point while the other thickened into a hilt. A distortion passed over the town square, causing blankets of snow and fleeing snowmen to vanish in its wake.

With the town square free of the winter, the citizens let out a cheer.

"Yes, yes, very fancy display," Brandr said as he retrieved the hovering, crimson crystal blade. "And now for part _numero dos_ of our bargain. Allow me to introduce you to some of my pals from the otherworld."

Brandr waved his arms, and suddenly, despite the midday sun, shadows were forming along the ground. Shadows that rose up and took the shape of black, apelike figures with yellow-green eyes. Citizens screamed and fled back into the snowstorm, but the changelings' attention seemed focused on Brandr. They surrounded him, their feline eyes giving him unblinking stares.

"Uh, I know you guys think I'm supposed to be getting tortured right now." Brandr let out an anxious laugh. "But, uh, see, that's where you got it wrong. The deal was I stay in the mortal world to harvest magic so long as my soul is bound to an antimagic sword." He held up his new toy. "And look what I have here! See, I told you I left it in my other pants!"

The changelings traded glances.

"And that's not all!" added Brandr, wiping sweat from his brow. "These mortals just agreed to fork over all their magic! See, I wasn't trying to escape rightful punishment. I was just trying to help you guys out because we're such good buddies!"

At this, the changelings turned around in unison, their eyes landing on the citizens.

"W-What are they going to do?" gulped a boy from the crowd.

"Don't worry, they're just gonna harvest your magic," said Brandr. "Won't hurt a bit. Of course, not even we Fae can tell who has magic and who doesn't, so we may have to be a bit indiscriminate, but, hey, what's a few extra abducted babies in the grand scheme of things, am I right?"

"Wait! Wait!" cried out a woman with an infant in her arms. "The faerie don't care about saving us from the queen! They just want to steal out firstborns!"

"What? No, no, don't be ridiculous," Brandr said soothingly. "_Of course_ we Fair Folk don't want to steal your firstborns." He gave her a warm smile. "_Anyone_ under the age of three will do!"

The changelings pounced, and struggle as she might, the woman was powerless to stop her bawling child from being wrenched from her hands.

* * *

One of the newly-minted snowmen patrolled the castle halls. As soon as they'd arrived in the castle, his creator had instructed him to be on the lookout for intruders. There was no telling what kind of sneaky people would try to break into their home and hurt them.

"_Gah-chh!_"

The snowman spun around, but there was nothing behind him but a big, plain mirror on the wall. He shook his head and continued down the hallway. That was odd. He could've sworn he'd heard the unmistakable sound of a sneezing reindeer.

A soon as the snowman was safely out of range, the mirror swung open, and a smelly reindeer accompanied by an even smellier boy and an actually pretty fragrant walking snowball emerged. Kristoff let out a big sigh of relief. It sure was lucky they'd found these secret hallways to facilitate sneaking around. Kristoff wondered if Anna knew they were there. She'd probably get into all sorts of wacky antics if she ever found them.

But then, with a pang in his chest, Kristoff realized there was a good chance Anna would never have wacky antics again. He steadied himself, took a deep breath, then continued creeping through the castle. The problem was, Kristoff wasn't really sure where Anna would be, and ever since Marshmallow's new siblings had shown up, Kristoff and his big, noisy reindeer hadn't exactly been granted freedom of movement. They'd mostly been confined to the old tunnels, which he supposed the castle had been build on top of.

Eventually, Kristoff, Sven, and Snowball found themselves up in an attic. Kristoff rummaged around. He wasn't sure what he expected to find, exactly – Was it too much to hope Anna was tied up in a closet in here?

And then Kristoff realized what he was rummaging through. This stuff must have belonged to Elsa and Anna's parents. Kristoff had only seen them from afar the day he'd followed them to the troll valley, but he still found himself growing solemn at the thought of their loss. The attic held a wedding dress that must have belonged to the old queen, along with a diary. A quick skim told Kristoff that it ended with the king's and queen's plans for their voyage (which by all appearances was a completely ordinary journey and not some super secret mission or something. That would just be silly).

Kristoff sighed and turned to his companion. "I don't know what to do, buddy. Don't suppose you have any plans?" Sven gave a sad snort.

And that's when Kristoff's eyes fell on something behind Sven. They went wide. "No..."

It was a statue of ice that, judging from its scrawniness and the fact that it was upside-down and propped up against several mops with a bucket over its foot, could only be Fritz Herman Gudmund (This was the best hiding spot Marshmallow could find).

"Elsa's even crazier than I thought," Kristoff said, horror gripping his voice. "If she's freezing _Fritz_, what's stopping her from...?"

He bolted for the door, throwing subtlety to the wind. He didn't care how many snowmen saw him. At this rate, he could already be too late!

Sven hurried out the attic after his friend, Snowball riding on his head. They ran blindly down the halls, not even paying attention to their surroundings until their path was blocked by a snowman about twice as big as the regular ones.

"Sven, run!"

Kristoff started to turn tail, but then the snowman called out, "Kristoff?"

The boy and reindeer halted, then breathed big sighs of relief. "Oh, Marshmallow, you scared us."

"You can't be here," said Marshmallow. "Elsa will hurt you!"

"We're not leaving without Anna," said Kristoff. "Have you seen her? Is she okay?"

Marshmallow nodded, then pointed towards the nearby spiral staircase leading up to the bedchambers. "She's in there. Go. I'll distract my brothers."

"Thanks a bunch!" said Kristoff, pushing past him. "You're the best giant snow-monster I've ever met!"

* * *

Is this what the spunkiest princess in Europe had been reduced to? Sitting on her bed, crying helplessly while Elsa froze the whole country? What kind of little sister was Anna if she couldn't even solve a basic problem like _this__?_ Anna forced herself to breathe. This was just a puzzle. A big, stupid, complicated puzzle, maybe, but one that had a solution. She just had to work out the rules.

Let's see... Elsa didn't have any happy memories – That was the most basic thing. It was like Daniel had gone through her whole life with a pair of scissors and snipped out all the good parts, leaving behind nothing but the lonely and depressing bits. But there was no point dwelling on the negative. Anna decided to focus on what Elsa _did_ remember.

She remembered her snowmen's names. Well, other than Olaf, who Daniel must've judged "too happy." And Elsa had _kind of_ remembered Anna. She at least knew that Anna wasn't someone she wanted to freeze to death. But... But that hadn't been enough to stop her from freezing Fritz... Anna felt the tears welling up inside her again. No! _No!_ She was done crying! Crying wasn't gonna solve anything! It would... never...

Anna didn't lift her head off the pillow again until she heard a banging on the door. She snapped to alertness. "Elsa?"

"Anna! Thank God!"

That voice wasn't Elsa's. Anna's tears evaporated. "_Kristoff?_"

"Sit tight, Anna, I'm gonna get you out of there!"

"Kristoff, wait-"

Next thing she knew, Anna was hearing the sounds of banging, and then the door swung open. Kristoff charged inside, dropping his ice-pick so he could give Anna a bear hug. For a wonderful few seconds, the two of them did nothing but hug harder than they'd ever hugged anything before. Even Sven and Snowball leaned in to nuzzle them.

"And _that's_ why I always keep my pick on Sven's saddle," grinned Kristoff. "Are you hurt? Did Elsa-?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine," Anna assured him. "But Kristoff, you can't be here! Elsa's-"

"I know, I saw Fritz," said Kristoff. "I don't care. I had to come get you. Now c'mon, Marshmallow's got the other snowmen distracted. We need to go before-"

"I'm not leaving!" Anna wrenched herself out of his grip. "I'm all Elsa has left. There's no telling what she'll do if I abandon her."

Kristoff let out a heavy sigh. "Yeah, but if you stay, you might..." His voice trailed off.

Anna gave him a bleak smile. "C'mon, when's mortal peril ever stopped me before? I'll be fine. I'm more worried about you. If I'm staying here and getting Elsa calmed down, it's up to you to find someone with magic so we can fix her memories."

Kristoff shook his head. "Weren't you paying attention? It's not about having magic or not. Grand Pabbie said _anyone_ can do memory-magic. What we have to find is someone who knows how to cast the spell."

Anna's eyebrows jumped up her face. "Wait, what?"

"We have to find someone who knows how to cast the spell," Kristoff repeated blankly. "Seems more like a semantic difference than-"

"_Anyone can do it? Anyone can do it!_"

"Uh, yeah-?"

Anna threw her arms around his neck. "_I_ know how to cast the spell!" Her face broke out into the biggest smile she'd worn in a long time.

"You _do__?_"

"Yeah, I saw Grand Pabbie do the whole thing! We just hold hands with a snowman and then say that nursery-rhyme-chant-thingy, and Elsa's fixed!" Anna found herself laughing in relief. "Kristoff, you're a genius!"

"I have my moments..."

Kristoff grinned, and then Anna sprang up on her tippy-toes to give him the biggest, most epic kiss of their lives.

* * *

They were safe. They were safe. The people of Arendelle would never threaten them again. And the Snow Queen had more children now. Not just children, really – an entire clan of snowmen. The queen had spent the past half hour organizing her newborns, dispersing them throughout the palace and grounds until every nook and cranny was guarded. Maybe tonight, the queen could actually sleep in her own bedroom.

With that finished, all the queen had left was to return to her sister. As she walked down the bedchambers hallways, she allowed herself a smile. For once, icicles weren't sprouting out the walls as she passed them. Everything would be fine. All the queen had to do now was let her sister out of their room. Anna was all that mattered. Anna was-

The queen halted in her tracks.

The door to Anna's room was wide open, and an ice-pick lay nearby. Her breath caught in her throat. How could she have been so stupid? One of the rebels had slipped past her, and instead of checking to make sure the most precious thing in the world was safe, the queen had left her alone in the castle! She ran into the bedroom, but it was too late. There was a man in the doorway nearly twice as large as Anna, forcing himself on her.

"_Don't touch her!_"

He scarcely had time to turn around.

_Fwoosh. _A bolt of magic whizzed through the air. There was a scream.

"_Elsa!_" Anna shrieked. "_Elsa, don't-_"

A reindeer crumpled to the floor. It let out a low groan, then raised its head to ensure its friend was alright.

The queen blinked. What was an animal doing in here?

"_Sven!_" The man released Anna and ran to the reindeer's side. In the span of seconds, all its fur had turned white, and its hooves were already becoming ice.

The man's gaze fell on the queen. She hadn't been scared of the armed mob, but that gaze _horrified_ her. "_Turn. Him. Back_."

The queen took a step backwards. "W-Who are you?"

"_Kristoff is a friend and he wasn't hurting me if we hurry we can save Sven what kind of __a__ct of __t__rue __l__ove does a rein-_" But before all the words were even out Anna's mouth, the reindeer was replaced by a reindeer statue.

The man stared at the ice-statue for several long, silent seconds.

"It's okay! It's okay!" The queen had never heard her sister's voice sound this panicked before. "I turned to ice, and I'm still here! All we need to do is stay clam and-"

"_Turn him back!_" The next instant, the man was on his feet, screaming at the top of his lungs. "_Turn him back right now!_"

"Stop yelling." The queen brought trembling hands to her head. "Stop yelling."

"Kristoff, we can fix this!" Anna pleaded, grabbing his arm. "But we can't freak her out!"

Judging by the tears running down his cheeks, his quaking fists, and the expression on his face, the man didn't seem to have heard her. "Turn him back! I know you can!"

"Stop yelling!"

"_Turn him back__!_"

"_I __said stop yelling__!_"

There was another _fwoosh_, and then there were two ice-statues in the room.

* * *

The whole world had gone crazy. Ever since Daniel had dropped out of the sky and revealed he was the wight, the world had been _pretty_ crazy, but now that there was a statue in the shape of Kristoff, forever frozen with his face in a snarl, the world was _completely_ crazy.

Anna required several minutes just to hold him and sob. She tried to hug him, but he was stiff and slippery, not warm and soft like Kristoffs are supposed to be, and she _hated_ that.

From the ground, Snowball gave a heartbroken "_Kree__?_"

"What have I done?" Elsa whispered to herself.

Anna spun towards her. "No, no, Elsa, it's-" She wiped her nose on her sleeve. "-it's okay. You didn't... didn't..." She forced herself to take a deep breath. "Elsa, is this what you did to Fritz, too? Turn him into ice, I mean?"

"Yes," said Elsa, taking another few steps backwards. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to-"

"No, this is great news!" Anna hardly recognized her own voice. It carried absolutely none of its usual bounce. "They're not dead! We can save them! You turned _me_ to ice by accident, and _I_ turned back. You just have to remember love will thaw."

Elsa paused. "I... I don't know what that means."

"It doesn't matter," said Anna. "I know how to fix your memories, and then you'll remember again. And we don't need to leave Arendelle or let any strangers mess with your head. All we need is one of your snowmen."

Her mind was going a million miles an hour. It'd only been a couple minutes, and Anna had already decided a world where Kristoff was an ice statue was not a very pleasant place to live. "Hmm... I'm guessing Marshmallow won't work... He wasn't really in your childhood like Olaf and Mary were..."

"How can you fix my memories?" asked Elsa.

"I'm gonna cast the spell on you myself."

But at this, Elsa resumed backing away. "No! You can't come near me. I'll hurt you! You saw what I just did. I can't stop myself!"

"Elsa, it's going to be fine! You only did that because you were scared-"

"_Stay away from me!_" She could see the beads of sweat freezing on Elsa's forehead. "_You're going to end up like the little girl beneath the oak tree!_"

Anna let out a sigh. "That wasn't your fault, Elsa. Daniel's the one who killed-" She nearly spasmed from shock. "Oh, _duh_, I'm the world's biggest idiot. I know what anchor point to use!"

Elsa looked blank. "What do you mean?"

"Follow me!" Anna sprinted out the bedroom and down the hall towards Elsa's room. "Oh, thank God, it's still here!"

Anna had never seen such a beautiful snowman- err, snowwoman. Just three plain lumps of snow, two handprints, and one flurry cloud stationed above it.

Elsa entered the bedroom after her sister. When she saw where Anna's eyes were, she asked, "What is that?"

"Our snowwoman." Anna ran to its side. "I guess you don't remember anymore, but we built it together after..." She bowed her head. "...after stuff happened. Look, the point is, it's snow in a familiar shape, and it's important to you. Perfect anchor point."

Elsa cautiously neared her sister. "So... this snowwoman can... can fix me?"

"Yeah!" Anna nodded enthusiastically. "Now, c'mon, what are we waiting-"

A plume of inky smoke formed by Anna's shoulder, followed by a distortion in the air. The snowwoman was vaporized instantly.

"-for?"

Anna was paralyzed. No way. _No way_. Not here. Not _now__!_

A tall, dark man with a crimson sword shot her an impish grin. "Aww, did I break something important? Whoops."


	69. Knock, Knock-Knock, Knock Knock

When Anna had sucker-punched Hans, she'd honestly thought it'd been out of nothing but a sense of righteous vengeance. A special, one-time thing that could only happen under those specific circumstances. But after she punched out the Duke of Weaseltown on sight, Anna had questioned this assumption. And now that the faerie's stupid face and stupid smirk and stupid pointy ears were staring her down, Anna was certain – She didn't want to punch people out of a sense of righteous vengeance. She wanted to punch people because she was _addicted to punching_. Anna knew that if she tried to sock Brandr, he'd turn her into a shish-kebab, and it was giving her some major withdrawal because _she wanted to knock the daylight out of him so bad!_

"Y'know, you've really done my job for me this time, Your Heiney," said Brandr, taking a lazy step towards the sisters. "When I told the Arendellians you were gonna freeze 'em all to death, I didn't think you'd actually do it! I mean, seriously now, _two_ eternal winters? People were practically begging me to take their magic away!"

For all Daniel's brainwashing, Elsa still impulsively placed herself between danger and her sister. "Stay away from us!"

Brandr looked her over, admiring the additions and, in some places, subtractions to Elsa's wardrobe. "Boy, that's an evil sorceress dress if I ever saw one. Gonna be honest, it suits you a whole lot better than your last new outfit." He took another step. "It's made of ice, though, so, y'know, if I wanted to be _really_ mean..."

"Don't come any closer!" Elsa raised her hands.

"Yeah! Elsa kicked your butt once, and she can do it again!" said Anna.

Brandr chuckled. "Is that so? Cuz, y'know, I heard the funniest story from the townsfolk. They told me Her Queeniness here's flipped her lid. Gone bananas. Got a screw loose. The 'it' in 'let it go' refers to her sanity."

"That doesn't mean she'll kick your butt any less."

"And that's where I think you're wrong, uh..." Brandr stared at her for a second. "...Princess Pigtails? I never got your name. But what I _do _got is the perfect way to test my hypothesis." He reached into his jacket and retrieved a match for his pipe. He lit it, then waved it around.

Elsa's entire body seized up. Her eyes followed the flame's movement exactly.

Brandr smirked. "Oh dear, dear, dear. First rule of a cryomancer making water: You can't be scared of heat. That's what got Mother Winter killed, y'know." He raised his sword. "This is gonna be such an unfair fight, I almost feel bad about murdering you. Almost."

Elsa's brow creased. "I'm not scared."

"_You're not scared__?_" Brandr feigned shock. "Gosh, wow, I had no idea you were so brave_\- Boo!_"

Suddenly, the match was hurtling towards Elsa's face. She screamed and rocked the room a blizzard, leaving it as nothing more than a splinter of frozen wood on the ground. But at the same time, something whizzed past Anna's chest, and the next thing she knew she was knocked off her feet.

The snowstorm died down to reveal Brandr standing in the same spot as before, unmoved. The only change was that his sword was now glowing white.

"Don't worry, we're okay," Brandr assured Elsa. "Our ice-eating swords protected us." He turned to Anna, then feigned more shock. "Oh! Wait! Princess Pigtails doesn't _have_ an ice-eating sword!"

Anna's heart was pumping faster, and with each heartbeat the room grew colder. She knew what'd happened even before she held a pigtail to her eyes. A pure white pigtail. "Not _again__!_"

"_Anna!_" Elsa ran to her side, pure horror on her face.

"I'm okay!" Anna made an effort not to shiver. "You just grazed me. Trust me, I know what having a frozen heart feels like. It's freezing super slowly. We've got plenty of time for an act of true love just as soon as you send this punk back to fairyland, okay?"

At Anna's words, Elsa seemed to regain some vigor. She nodded, then turned to Brandr. "You want me, Fae? Come and get me!" A jet of cold wind sent Elsa rocketing out the bedroom and down the hall. Brandr poofed into a black smoke cloud to drift after her.

Now Anna was alone in Elsa's room, clutching her chest. With Elsa gone, Anna allowed herself to shiver. Her toes were already numb. Last time, they hadn't gone numb until she'd left the trolls.

"_Freezing super slowly_," she repeated bitterly. "I should be an actress."

* * *

She'd have thought flying indoors would be tricky, but the winds seemed to guide the Snow Queen through the castle halls perfectly. She needed to put as much distance between the faerie and her sister as possible. When she reached the entrance hall, the queen braced herself, then burst through the front doors. The winds dropped her in the snow-covered courtyard directly beside the ice-statue that had once been the old man.

If she didn't win this fight, the queen realized, that's what Anna would become, too. She pushed the thought from her mind. The queen couldn't let herself be distracted. This wasn't a one-sided battle against a group of mortals anymore.

There was only a second of relief before the inky smoke touched down on the opposite side of the courtyard. "What's wrong?" Brandr called to her. "Looking for a hiding spot?"

"No." The queen outstretched her arms. "Looking for an ambush spot."

The next instant, countless snowmen fell from the sky, carried by dozens upon dozens of monster-sized snowbirds. The Marshmallow-lookalikes opened their mouths, the monster-snowbirds opened their beaks, and the Mary-style ones' blank faces morphed into opened jaws. An avalanche of blizzard-breath crashed over Brandr, compounded by the queen's own magic firing at full strength.

For a good several minutes, the entire courtyard was solid white. Well, solid white except where the snow neared Brandr. He held out the crimson sword lazily, whistling an upbeat tune as the frost sucked itself in. After a while, the blizzard finally died down. Despite all their efforts, the most the queen and her army could do now was scowl.

"Funny how history repeats itself," said Brandr. "You've got the army of snow-monsters, the eternal winter that threatens to envelop the whole planet, the sputtering lunacy... All you've got left is to run around naked, and you'll be a perfect Mother Winter two-point-O!"

"Does that include the part where Mother Winter beat you?"

"Nah, she only overpowered me because the mortals got mad at us Fae for stealing their babies, so the swords didn't have enough hate," said Brandr. "But, I mean, she tried to freeze the whole planet, so they still had more than enough to kill her. And I'd say if your friends there are anything to judge by-" He pointed to the gates behind the queen, where the ice-statues of Klaus and his army stood. "-your citizens don't exactly feel lovey-dovey towards you right now. Sword should be all fueled up with hate. Here, let me give you a demonstration."

With inhuman speed, he pounced into the mob. Distortions filled the air as Brandr sliced through snowman after snowman. Some of them tried to tackle him while others tried to flee, but all shared the same fate.

* * *

On the plus side, the snowmen had all left Arendelle's capital to help battle Brandr, and Brandr had at least made sure to clear every drop of snow from the village before going to slay the queen. Unfortunately, the citizens were a bit too distracted to appreciate this. The scene in the town could only be described as pandemonium. Changelings roamed the streets, pouncing on fleeing families and wrenching horrified children from their arms. Even houses were unsafe. As far as the Fae law was concerned, the townsfolk's bargain with Brandr gave the changelings express permission to enter their homes. Every last nook and cranny was torn apart, and every last toddler hiding in a closet or cowering with their parents was grabbed and thrown into the changeling's shadows. They sank inside like they were in pools of black water, vanishing into the otherworld.

Some parents screamed, some pleaded, and some even tried to the attack the Fae with cold iron (as if a regular hunk of metal could stop supremely powerful supernatural beings), but the changelings scarcely seemed to acknowledge the mortals' presence. There was a small consolation, though – The changelings were at least considerate enough to replace the abducted infants with their own children. Cradles were filled with tiny black creatures that transformed into seemingly human babies the instant they touched the mattresses.

A man and woman were among those dashing blindly through the streets, but the woman's belly happened to be quite swollen, so she couldn't exactly run marathons. When her foot caught a loose cobblestone, she was sent tumbling to the pavement.

"_Charlotte__!_" Her husband ran to her side, but by then, the changelings were already upon her. The man tried to wrestle them away, but they knocked him back with superhuman strength.

"Wait! Wait!" Charlotte shrieked, thrashing about helplessly. "I haven't even given birth yet!"

At this, the changelings paused and traded brief glances amongst each other. One of them stepped forward and raised a hand. Claws erupted from the fingertips.

* * *

The last little snowbird in the courtyard tried to fly away, but it was sucked into the red blade just like its brothers.

"There we go," Brandr said, patting his weapon affectionately. "Those ice-golems made for some nice little appetizers, but I think I'm ready for the main course."

"_You don't hurt my children!_" The resulting snow-explosion should've been visable from space, but the ice was sucked into Brandr's blade as fast as the queen could conjure it.

"Yeah, yeah, I've heard that song and dance before," said Brandr, leisurely strolling towards her. "It's not too much to hope you'll say something more creative than 'Agh!' when I stab you, is it?"

The Snow Queen let out a cry of equal parts fear and frustration. Her winds shot her into the evening sky in a desperate attempt to escape, but before she could fly farther than a few feet, a dark cloud formed above her.

"Surprise!" Brandr would've landed on top of her if the queen hadn't had the sense to swerve out of the way. A distortion passed over her, and the next thing she knew, the queen was falling. For a few panicked seconds, she flailed through the air, but just before striking the ground she managed to summon a big pile of snow. It broke her fall, but a moment later, the pile evaporated and the queen finished smashing into the pavement.

"Ouch," said Brandr, materializing beside her. "That looked like it hurt."

The red crystal glimmered before the queen's eyes. She found herself trembling. Her eyes darted over the courtyard, searching for something – _anything_ – that could help her. That's when she saw it: a white horse standing right beside the gates. Brandr must've left it there when he went into the castle.

A faint memory flashed through the queen's skull. _Daniel, holding an icicle to the horse's neck_. Moments before the blade fell, a bolt of frost shot from her hand. The horse let out a bray of pain, but the next instant it was ice.

"Hey! _Hey!_" It was the closest the queen had ever seen to genuine emotion on Brandr's face. He was distracted long enough for her to push herself across the courtyard with a gust of wind, landing a safe distance away. "Not cool! You can accuse me of being an inhuman monster, but you can't say I'm not a fair sport! Did I go out of my way to kill Princess Pigtails? Huh? _Did I?_"

The queen sprinted for the gates.

"Oh, running away on foot? Good luck with that." Brandr's feline eyes narrowed. "Lady, you just killed my _associate_. Know what that means?" He held his sword high. "It means no more screwing around."

* * *

Charlotte shut her eyes, and for a second, there was nothing but the sound of changeling-footsteps drawing nearer.

But then a voice rang out, "_Stop it!_"

Charlotte opened her eyes to find a gray-haired woman standing before her.

"_Stop it!_" Mrs. Dale was staring down the entire group of changelings, and, even more shocking, they'd actually halted. "This isn't what we want!" She turned to the gathered villagers. "Look at us! Do we look _happy_ with this?" Mrs. Dale gestured to Charlotte, who was curled up on the cobblestone, sniffling. "We didn't accept this bargain! You tricked us! You lied to us!"

The changelings traded another round of glances amongst themselves. They seemed to be silently debating.

"But... if we don't let this happen," said a nearby man, "everyone will freeze. We'll _all _die."

"And what do you think will happen to our children if we let these _things_ have them?" spat Mrs. Dale. "_Nothing_ is worth losing your child! Ask any parent here! Ask them if they're happy with this!"

The man faltered. "But... But we all saw the queen. She sent her monsters to attack us!"

It was at this point that a pair of portly, middle-aged servants stepped forward.

"Klaus and his men attacked her first," said Kai. "For all we know, the queen saw it as self-defense."

"I've known Queen Elsa since she was a baby," said Gerda. "She would never harm a soul. Kristoff said someone used magic to destroy her mind."

"And how do we know these faerie aren't the ones who did it?" added Kai. "Ensure the eternal winter returned so we'd give them our children?"

Whispers went through the crowd.

"Yeah..."

"We've been tricked!"

"I... I know Queen Elsa, too," said Charlotte as her husband helped her back to her feet. "I work for her. She's the kindest lady I've ever met."

The crowd's whispers grew in volume:

"She made her courtyard into an ice-skating rink... What kind of crazy evil sorceress goes ice-skating?"

"Her snowmen aren't all monsters... My boy made friends with that little one..."

"During her public address... didn't the queen tell us _not_ to be super paranoid?"

"My daughter is Queen Elsa's biggest fan..."

"Maybe Queen Elsa _doesn't_ partake in depraved incest," admitted Henrik (He and Morten had chickened out of joining Klaus's army). "Maybe she's just a regular person with perfectly normal familial relationships."

Mrs. Dale turned back to the changelings. "You hear that? We'll take our chances with the eternal winter! The deal's off!"

* * *

With inhuman strength, Brandr pinned the queen against the ground of the snow-covered courtyard, and try as she might, she couldn't escape his grasp.

"Ready to make history, little girl?" taunted Brandr. "I'm about to become the hero who saved the earth from freezing _twice_, whereas you will be remembered as nothing but the monster you are." Through the smoke, a crimson blade floated until it was level with the Snow Queen's neck. "Now maybe, seeing as my sword is at your throat, I can get an apology for killing my associate?"

"Your horse would thank me for sparing him from you!" A bolt of frost sent the sword tumbling backwards a couple feet.

"What the heck?" said Brandr. "The sword should've absorbed that."

* * *

"Have you all lost your minds?" Suddenly, one loud, nagging voice overpowered the rest of the crowd. It was an old woman dragging an embarrassed-looking toddler by the arm. "The queen is a monster! She wants to kill us all! And you're just going to let that happen because you're so selfish, you can't even spare a couple children?"

This woman's own child, incidentally, had just had his fourth birthday.

* * *

The red sword raised the air again, but this time, when the queen tried to knock it away, it absorbed the frost just fine.

"Ah, there we go," said Brandr. "Just a minor technical difficulty. No big deal."

The queen could do nothing but brace herself. The blade lunged.

* * *

Most of the crowd glared at the woman, but a couple people looked unsure.

"You idiots brought this on yourselves!" the woman yelled.

"Um, Mama-?" her boy tried to say.

"These monsters wouldn't be here if Arendelle hadn't let a worthless, vile, unbaptized _changeling_ onto the throne!"

Every last yellow-green eye snapped towards her. The changelings stepped forward in unison.

"Wait, what are you-? _Stop!_" The old woman kicked and screamed, but she couldn't save the child from being wrenched from her hands. "He's too old! He's not a baby! He's not-"

The boy was dragged, shrieking, into the shadows, vanishing completely. For a minute, the whole crowd stared at the spectacle in stark silence.

The old woman fell to her knees. "I... I..." She turned her head towards Mrs. Dale, who gave her a sad stare. "Okay." Her voice shook. "Okay. The deal's off."

* * *

The sword cut off the queen's head. Or at least, it would've if it hadn't spontaneously changed from a powerful antimagic artifact into a useless hunk of rock. A blast of wintry wind sent it skidding across the courtyard. Then, another wave of the Snow Queen's hand sealed the blade in a prism of ice.

"Agh! What? How? That's- That's never happened before!" Brandr withdrew himself, sputtering.

With the faerie no longer pinning her down, the queen rose to her feet.

"W-Well, it doesn't matter!" said Brandr. "I can kill you just fine without it!"

The queen wordlessly summoned a snowstorm strong enough to shake the cobblestone loose. Brandr wavered a bit, but he stood his ground.

"Ha! Nice try! Do you have any idea how much raw magical power it'd take to beat me?"

A pillar of wind rocketed the Snow Queen into the sky. She floated miles above the earth, her hair and clothing flapping wildly, and heaved her arms above her head. Far above her, a little white speck formed. It grew larger and larger with alarming speed.

"That much," said Brandr faintly. "It'd take exactly that much."

A second later, an icy meteor smashed into the heart of the courtyard.

* * *

The impact was heard from the other side of town. Every last changeling was sent running to the palace gates, and a sizable crowd of mortals followed suit. But once they reached the courtyard, faerie and human alike halted in awe. There was a colossal crater, and standing before it, chest heaving, face covered in bits of rubble, was the Snow Queen.

A shadow crept over the crater, and the familiar shape of a tall, dark man in a dark jacket formed. What was less familiar was Brandr's face, which held absolutely none of its usual smugness.

"Okay, okay, I know this looks bad!" Brandr said to the changelings. "But I got really close to killing her this time! And, I mean, you guys still got all those babies, right? Some of those have got to have some magic in them, right? Net gain for the otherworld! And Her Queeniness didn't smash my sword this time, so my soul is still bound to the mortal realm. Right, guys? Guys?"

_Technically, yes, _said a voice from the shadows, _but we grow tired of tolerating you, Brandr. Your methods worked a thousand years ago, but clearly things have changed. These mortals didn't even want to relinquish their magic._

"It's just a minor setback!" yelped Brandr. "This chick is nuts! I mean, look at her!" He pointed to the queen, who scowled at him. "The mortals need me to kill her for them! They-"

_We're almost inclined to think_, cut in the voice, _that this was less about harvesting magic for the otherworld and more about escaping your rightful punishment._

"What? No, you don't understand-"

_Perhaps eternal torture wasn't enough for you. Perhaps you need to be sealed into a mountainside..._

Brandr gulped. "And, uh, did you have any... _particular_ mountain in mind?

_Chernabog could use a new chew toy._

"_No! Please! Anything but that! Anything but_-!"

The next instant, dark hands sprang from the shadows, clamped themselves over Brandr's mouth, and dragged him back into the darkness.

And with that, the changelings faded _out of_ existence while countless babies faded _into_ existence. All across the town, parents were being reunited with their proper children, while the changeling-babies vanished back into the otherworld.

And that was the last Arendelle saw of the Fair Folk ever again. The danger had passed completely.

* * *

There was danger everywhere! The Snow Queen could hardly breathe. Countless eyes were fixed on her. With her snowmen were still trapped in the crimson sword, it was up to her to protect herself.

"Queen Elsa! You saved us! You saved our children!" A gray-haired woman ran towards her.

"_Stay back!_" But a wall of jagged icicles kept her at bay.

As the queen's breathing grew more ragged, the ice sprouted faster. It climbed up the walls of the courtyard, twisting around the crowd to cut off their escape.

"_You_ sent the faerie!" the queen yelled at the crowd. "It was _your _hatred fueling his sword!"

"Elsa, we don't want to hurt you!" said the woman. "Please, whatever's been done to your mind, you have to end the winter before-"

"_Quiet!_"

The queen stepped backwards until her back was pressed against the palace's front doors.

She'd been so stupid. Clearly, simply having her snowmen police the town wasn't enough. These people couldn't be left to their own devices. They knew the queen was a monster, and they would _never_ stop hunting monsters. There was only one solution.

The Snow Queen raised her arms. She was the winter. The mortals would _always_ fear her. Winter means death.

* * *

_Shivering. Teeth chattering. White hair. _

Anna continued her agonizingly slow march down the spiral staircase. She really wished she'd thought to change into something warmer when she'd been trapped in her room. The dress she had on now was more suited for a scorching drought. Y'know, the way the weather had been yesterday before all this craziness happened.

After what felt like forever, Anna reached the bottom step. There. One staircase down... the rest of the castle to go.

It was fine, she assured herself. It was all gonna work out fine. She'd heard that big explosion from outside. All she had to do was make it to the courtyard, throw herself in the way of Brandr's sword at the most dramatic possible moment, and then her heart would unfreeze, and she could cast the spell to fix Elsa, and the winter would thaw, and everything would be fine.

Anna shivered again. Yeah, that's definitely what was gonna happen.

_Hurts to breathe. Lungs... freezing... Numbness... up to ankles..._

By the time Anna reached the entrance hall, she couldn't feel anything below the knees. She forced herself not to look down at her legs. Last time, Elsa had hit Anna's heart head-on, but Elsa also hadn't had every last happy memory yanked out of her skull. This time, the ice may have only grazed Anna's heart, but the magic had fired at full force. It wasn't an instant freeze, but it was freezing _fast_.

_Instant freeze. Like what happened to Kristoff..._

No. No! She wasn't thinking about that right now! There was no point! In a couple minutes, Kristoff would be a person again and not a statue, and they'd all laugh about how the guy who claimed ice was his life had actually _become_ ice.

At least Kristoff probably hadn't felt anything. That... made Anna... glad...

She was halfway through the entrance hall by now. Good, good, just a bit farther and she was home free. That was, assuming Elsa was just outside, and assuming Elsa was still alive, and assuming Brandr was swinging a sword at her at _just_ the right moment, and assuming Anna could get there before she... before she...

Anna glanced down at her legs. Her stomach tightened. They were made of ice. _Her legs were made of ice_. Dang it! She'd promised herself she wouldn't look at her legs! Now she was panicking!

Now Anna was hyperventilating, and it hurt even worse to breathe. Not a good combination. Anna tried to take a step forward, but as she did, the ice crawled up to the tip of her torso, and she found herself toppling over.

Gah! This was so unfair! Last time, she'd turned into an ice-statue all at once, not bit-by-bit! Anna was forced to use her arms to pull herself off the carpet, then crawl towards the end of the hall. There. She'd made it. Now to head outside and... Anna paused. She _couldn't_ head outside.

The door was closed.

Anna found herself laughing. It wasn't a very happy laugh. "Well, that _figures_..." She strained to push it open, but without a working pair of legs, it wasn't exactly easy. After a few minutes of fruitless struggling, she gave up and let herself plop back down onto the carpet.

Now the numbness had crept up to Anna's stomach.

"Stupid... doors..." She was surprised how slurred she sounded. "Gonna... find the guy who... invented doors and... smack him..." Anna found herself shutting her eyes. Something trickled down her cheek, then stuck there. It took her a second to realize it was a tear.

_Whoa there, Anna... Brain's not firing on all cylinders, is it? _It struck Anna that this was probably because the ice had reached her brain by now. In fact... her chest felt awfully heavy... Anna wondered how much of her insides were still fleshy...

"Why couldn't Elsa have just... _not_ gotten freaked out...?" Anna said aloud to nobody in particular. "Why's she... always have to... be like this...?" She gave another bitter laugh. "Yeah... she's a stinker, alright..."

Now that she thought about it, this carpet was _really _comfy. It couldn't possibly hurt anything if she just... shut her eyes for a minute and took a quick power nap...

Her lids were half-shut when Anna heard a "_Kree__?_"

"Wha-?" She managed to turn her head. There was a little snowball with legs standing right in her face. "Oh... Hey, there, Snowball..."

Snowball pushed against Anna's tummy with all its might, but it failed to return her to her feet.

"Hey, little guy...?" Anna's eyelids finished their journey downwards. "...could you... tell Elsa... I love her... for me...?"

"_Kree! Kree! Kree!_" Snowball's cries were growing more frantic, but somehow, it sounded miles away...

For she-didn't-know-how-long, there was nothing in Anna's world but stillness, quietness, and coldness. _Especially_ coldness. Anna didn't really remember what being an ice-statue had felt like, but... she thought maybe it felt something like how she felt now...

A pair of freezing cold hands put themselves under her armpits.

"Huh?" Anna had been pretty cold before, of course, but it had been more of a broad cold that lulled her to sleep. These fingers were a sharp cold that jolted her awake. "Whuz goin' on...?"

Anna's vision was pretty blurry by now, but she could swear there was a... a little girl with silvery blond hair where Snowball had been standing just a minute ago.

"_Elsa__?_" Anna got out groggily.

Anna felt the child's hands push her to her feet, once again sending coldness surging through Anna's body. Sheesh, this girl's hands were freezing. What, were they made of ice or something?

Anna blinked, but before she could take a closer look, she realized there was nothing in the entrance hall but Snowball. Anna shook her head. The ice must have _really_ been in her brain. Now she was seeing things.

_The door. Focus on the door._

Anna extended an arm. With a pang, she noticed little bits of ice were starting to sprout over her skin. That couldn't be good. But she ignored it and made another effort to push the door open. No dice.

She wanted to scream in frustration, but Anna's voice barely worked anymore. _Stupid door! Open!_ What was she supposed to do _now__?_

Anna didn't remember coming up with the plan, but her body seemed to move on pure impulse, and suddenly it was really obvious what she was supposed to do.

* * *

Villagers screamed and huddled together as the jagged icicles moved in closer.

"You hurt me," said the Snow Queen, her voice quivering. "You locked me away. Never again. _Never again_."

She could feel the ice at her fingertips, ready to come pouring out any second now. The Snow Queen had spent her entire life holding back, and now, finally, she realized that all along, all she'd needed to do to solve her every problem, to put an end to her suffering, was to take all the power caged up inside her and let it-

_Knock, knock-knock, knock knock._

The wood against the Snow Queen's back shook. She gave a start and turned around. There was something... _familiar_... about...

"_Do you... want to... build a... snowman...?_"

* * *

Anna shut her eyes. More tears were freezing to her cheeks. She was too weak. The knocking had been too faint. Her voice had been too soft. It'd never worked before, anyways. Why should it-?

There was a _creeeaaak_, and suddenly, Anna was looking at her sister. Her sister with wild, messy hair, a skimpy dark dress, and a jagged cape, maybe, but still her sister.

"I don't know what that means," said Elsa.

Anna found herself laughing. It wasn't quite as bitter this time. "I can show you."

With a bit of assistance, Anna hobbled her way into the courtyard. There was a big crater in the ground that Anna sincerely hoped was where Brandr had once stood, and by the gates, a large crowd of citizens were staring at the sisters, Mrs. Dale at the lead. Anna gave them a reassuring smile.

She could already feel the numbness around her shoulders. There wasn't time to lose. "C'mon..." Anna got out. "Plenty of snow..."

Elsa stared. When she remained motionless, Anna took the initiative, dropping to her knees. It was a little harder to pile the snow together when her arms were more ice than arm, but Anna tried her hardest.

"Old-fashioned way..." Anna let out another weak laugh. "No powers... cheating..."

Elsa seemed to understand. She fell to her own knees and mimicked Anna's gestures, rolling up a lump of snow. Once they had three, Anna tried to pile them on top of each other, but by then the ice was up to her wrists and neck. It looked like Anna was wearing her own, much stiffer ice-dress.

Elsa finished piling the lumps for her. They were left with the plainest, most misshapen snowman they'd ever built.

"What now?" asked Elsa.

Anna wiggled her fingers – one of the last few muscle movements she was capable of. "Spread out your fingers." After a bit of struggling, Anna managed to press her palm against the snowwoman's heart. Elsa once again mimicked her, placing her hand over Anna's.

"Perfect," said Anna, forcing a smile. "Now... name... need to... remember, Elsa... Can't forget... ever..."

Now Elsa was the one with tears freezing to her face. "It's my fault," she said. "You're dying because I love you. Everyone I love-"

"_Name!_" Anna repeated. "You... remember... your snowmen's... names..."

Elsa's eyes fell on the snowwoman. You could see the spark cross them. "Emma."

Anna felt Elsa's hand squeeze her own. She shut her eyes tight. The numbness was starting to creep over her tongue, but it didn't matter. Anna happened to be highly skilled at speaking a million words a minute.

"_Anchor help replace,_

_Her precious missing thoughts._

_The past was not erased._

_She has only forgot_."


	70. Na Na Na Heyana

There are few things worse than waking up in a strange place with no recollection of how you got there. One of these things is waking up in a strange place with no recollection of how you got there while you're upside down with a bucket over your foot.

"Wha-? Agh!" Fritz tipped over and was promptly smacked in the face by every single mop in the closet. What the-? What was going on? Was this heaven? Why did heaven look like a musty old attic? And was it just Fritz's imagination, or was his pinky a bit crooked?

After some fumbling around, Fritz made his way out of the attic and down the stairs. It quickly became apparent that either heaven looked exactly like Queen Elsa's castle – which, if the non-crazy version of her was inhabiting it, was definitely a possibility – or Fritz was still alive. The castle halls were oddly empty, but a quick glance out the window told Fritz that the winter was gone, so he supposed the worst of it was over-

"_Fritz!_"

Out of nowhere, a giant, antlered beast pounced on Fritz, pinning him to the floor with its hooves and then running its sickening tongue over his face. No matter how Fritz shrieked and thrashed, he couldn't wrench the creature off of him. Bring back evil-Elsa! He'd take death-by-Elsa! He'd take-

"Down, Sven!" The reindeer reluctantly moved off of its prey. Fritz wiped off its diseased spit, then gazed up at the incredible beast master standing before him.

"You okay?" said Kristoff, helping Fritz to his feet. Fritz nodded feebly. "Sorry about that. Sven's just excited to not be made of ice anymore."

Fritz's brain wasn't at its best right now, so his reply was less "I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean" and more "Guhuh _wah__?_"

"Well, by the looks of things, Elsa's calmed back down." Kristoff took a breath and turned to the hall. "C'mon, we'd better find everyone else and make sure they're not hurt."

Fritz followed after Kristoff, keeping a good few feet of distance between himself and the antlered monstrosity. Once they arrived in the entrance hall, the trio paused before the front door.

"Hate to be a downer, but just because the winter's thawed doesn't mean Elsa's not crazy anymore," said Fritz. "She could've been... y'know..." He shuddered. A world without Elsa sounded _way_ scarier than reindeer.

Kristoff stared at the wood. "I know," he sighed. "Let's just hope Elsa's alive and well on the other side of this thing." He pushed the door open.

Fritz was immediately tackled by a woman with a tight, dark dress, flowing, wild hair, and a crown of icicles. He only screamed at the top of his lungs for a second before the wind was knocked out of him and he was sent skidding across the carpet.

"You're alive!" Elsa gave Fritz a big kiss on the cheek, which triggered all kinds of post-traumatic stress. But she didn't seem to notice his horrified squeals as she hopped up to give Kristoff a bear hug.

"Us? What about you?" said a grinning Kristoff. "We thought someone might have, y'know, ended the winter the easy way instead of using true love."

"Nope. Plenty of true love here," said Anna, scooting Elsa out of the way so she could give Kristoff a hug of her own. "You should've seen it. There was, like, an explosion of magic! The whole courtyard lit up!" The couple shared a celebratory "glad we're not ice statues" kiss.

No one would've guessed that just a few minutes ago, everyone had been on the brink of freezing to death. It was a beautiful if scorching day out, the sunset providing a backdrop to the sight of overjoyed crowds of people, not a single snowflake to be found. The only real sign anything was amiss was the smoking crater in the middle of the courtyard – Fritz was a little afraid to ask how it'd gotten there – and the ice statues of Klaus and his army. It wasn't that Elsa couldn't unfreeze those so much as they'd all been about a second away from firing their weapons, so unleashing them onto a packed courtyard probably wouldn't be the best idea ever.

But what Elsa did deem the best idea ever, apparently, was to run around the courtyard like a maniac giving freezing cold bear hugs to anyone who'd accept them, including but not limited to Mrs. Dale, Kai, Gerda, Snowball, Sven, Olympus, and Anders.

"Is it just my imagination," said Fritz, "or does Elsa seem kind of...?"

Anna unstuck her face from Kristoff's to turn to him. "Kind of what?"

"_I'm as glad as the next person to not be an ice-statue, Your Majesty, but please try and compose yours-_"

"_I love you, Anders! You're the best butler ever!_"

"Oh, right." Anna let out an anxious laugh. "Well, when I got a couple of my memories fixed, it made me pretty giddy, and, well, Elsa just got _all_ her memories fixed, so..."

"Where's Olaf?" Elsa yelled as she ran back into the entrance hall. "I want to hug him next!"

"Hey, Elsa?" Anna called out, chasing after her. "I think you should sit down."

"Whee!" Elsa's only response was to conjure up an ice-slide beneath her feet so she could slide from the ceiling to the floor.

"No, Elsa, seriously, Grand Pabbie said people with their memories fixed can get so giddy that they slip and hurt themselves, remember?"

"You worry too much," Elsa called down the slide's top. "I'm perfectly- _Oof__!_" Luckily, Kristoff was poised enough to catch her before Elsa went splat onto the rug. Elsa, however, didn't seem too perturbed by the experience. As soon as Kristoff returned her to solid ground, she burst out laughing.

Anna traded concerned glances with Kristoff, then ran to her side. "Elsa? Maybe you need to take some deep breaths." But Elsa ignored her, laughing harder and harder until it turned into sobbing. Anna immediately pulled her into a hug. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Elsa finally took Anna's advice and helped herself to some air. "I'm just so _happy_."

"Are you sure you're alright?" asked Anna, squeezing her tighter. "I mean, after everything Daniel did to your head... I wouldn't blame you if you need to rest for a while."

"I'm okay. In fact, I..." Elsa gave a thoughtful pause, then said, "I barely even remember the last two days. It's all a blur."

"Really?" frowned Anna. "Because I remember not remembering, remember?" Elsa stared at her. "Wait, let me try that again. Uh... Even with my memories fixed, I remember the parts of my life where I couldn't remember you had powers. So why can't you remember being in crazy Snow Queen mode?"

"You only had a few details changed. I practically had my whole life obliterated." Elsa shut her eyes and brought a palm to her temple. "All I remember is this deep, _deep_ despair, and... a few key moments. Making Mary again, freezing Klaus's army..."

"You wouldn't happen to remember anything involving me, would you?" asked Fritz.

Elsa blinked. "No, why?"

"Nothing, don't worry about it..."

Elsa let go of Anna and made for the door. "I think the giddiness has passed. I need to deal with the citizens."

Fritz stared at the doorway for a minute after she left. So to recap, now physical contact with Elsa set off his traumatic memories of freezing to death, and he had to live in constant fear that Elsa would suddenly remember the horrific details. Well, Fritz _supposed_ this was still better than being an ice-statue...

* * *

As soon as she returned to the courtyard, Elsa nearly cried out in shock. Emma the snowwoman had all but completely turned into a puddle by now. Even though it was just a symbol, losing it still made Elsa's heart sink. She should've given it a personal flurry, but she'd been so distracted...

Oh, well, she and Anna could always rebuild it for a third time. They could build as many snowmen as they wanted now. That thought made the giddiness well up in her stomach again, but Elsa fought it back down. She knew most of her current joy was just an aftereffect of the memory-spell, but she found herself hardly caring. At this point, Elsa would take any happiness she could get. But right now she had to focus.

Elsa stepped forward before her citizens. Some of them had dispersed by now, but most were lingering around, examining the frozen rebels warily. At Elsa's approach, every eye fell on her. The giddiness was replaced with butterflies, but Elsa fought those down, too. She took a deep breath, then said, "Everyone stand back." When the citizens complied, she waved her hands. The next instant, every last remaining ice-statue returned to being an angry rebel. Things would've gotten pretty messy if Elsa hadn't the sense to keep the guns and bows made of ice.

"I'm not going to fight you!" Elsa announced to the mob. They all seemed pretty disoriented at first, but the sound of her voice turned their heads her way. Once she had their attention, Elsa sent a wave of magic over herself that evaporated her icicle-crown and replaced that disgusting outfit Daniel had forced on her with Elsa's proper ice-dress and cape. Elsa would've done that sooner, but she'd wanted to make sure everybody saw it happen. Hopefully, they were at least reasonable enough to make the deduction that "bad dress equaled bad Elsa" and "good dress equaled good Elsa."

"The eternal winter is over," Elsa told the crowd. "For anyone who hasn't heard, a sorcerer altered my mind. As far as I'm concerned, what Arendelle just suffered was _his_ fault. But I understand why you did what you did. None of you have done anything criminal – You were just trying to defend your country the best way you knew how. In fact, most of you are from my own royal guard. I thank you for your courage, and I would appreciate it if you returned to work as soon as possible. We can't let Arendelle fall into anarchy."

About two seconds after the words left her mouth, a massive argument erupted between the people still loyal to the queen and the people who thought "a sorcerer brainwashed me" was the worst excuse they'd ever heard.

"_Everyone quiet!_" But one voice quickly overpowered the others. A hush fell over the army as Admiral Klaus stepped forward. He placed himself before Elsa, looming over her. Elsa found herself making a sharp intake of breath. Then Klaus fell to one knee and bowed his head. "Your Majesty, allow me to be the first to formally apologize for my actions."

Elsa exhaled. "No need, Admiral. You have nothing to apologize for."

"So we're just going back to the way things were?" screamed a soldier from the crowd. "Is this what Queen Elsa's reign will be? All of us under her thumb, living in fear of the eternal winter returning?"

"The sorcerer responsible for this is dead," said Elsa. "I assure you, it will _never _happen again."

But not everyone in the crowd seemed to be approaching this issue from a calm, rational perspective. Several of them were even trying to squeeze the ice-triggers of their ice-rifles to see if they would fire ice-bullets.

"Maybe we don't need someone on the throne who could kill us all by blinking!" cried out a voice.

Elsa scowled, searching the crowd for the heckler. "I'm sorry you feel that way," she said. "But this throne is rightfully mine. I have no intention of stepping down."

"We'll _make you _step down!" screamed another.

"What are you going to do, start another rebellion?" scoffed Klaus. "Good luck. As for those of you who _aren't_ eager to return to being statues, I'd suggest you go make sure your family and friends survived the winter unscathed. Your grievances with the queen can be dealt with at a later time and in a civil manner."

At his words, even the angriest members of the mob seemed to lose their steam. After that, there was a slow trickle of villagers heading back to town and staff returning to the castle. Elsa wasn't happy to have her reputation flushed down the toilet _again_, but frankly, things had gone a lot better than she'd expected. And yes, some of these people had likely jumped at the chance to kill her, but Elsa _had_ been extremely unhinged and dangerous, and nobody had tried to justify themself by claiming Elsa had killed her sister and committed treason in a ploy to take her throne this time, so...

"I can't even begin to thank you, Admiral Klaus," Elsa told him. "If you hadn't sided with me..."

"I truly am sorry for what I did," said Klaus. "But what choice did I have?" He let out a heavy sigh. "Your Majesty, I'll continue working here until things have settled down, but after that, I hope you'll accept my resignation."

"You don't have to do that."

"It's time I returned to my home country. Besides, I let our professional relationship become strained. To be perfectly honest, Your Majesty, I came to Arendelle in part because the acceptance of magic is an... important issue to me. But I allowed it to affect my judgment... and my treatment of you."

"I don't hold that against you." Elsa let out a little laugh. "In fact, I'd prefer it if you stayed. From what I've heard, there aren't many admirals more qualified than you."

"I'm sorry." And with that, Klaus walked past Elsa towards the castle gates.

Elsa found herself frowning. This man was a mystery to her. But then, the minds of other people was a puzzle Elsa hadn't gained much experience solving while locked in her room for a decade.

She was shaken from this thought by another old man approaching her. "Is it safe to assume your little sugar high is over?" asked Anders.

Elsa's frown turned itself the other way. "Yes, Anders. Sorry if I sprained something when I hugged you."

"I'm already crippled." Anders gestured to the cane in his hand. "Can't get much worse than that."

"You seem to be walking around just fine," said Elsa with only a slight smirk. "Are you sure it's not psychosomatic?"

Anders shot her a wry smile. "Very smart. I hope I'm not rubbing off on you." But then the smile wavered, and he bowed his head. "Queen Elsa, I know when your mind was altered, I... didn't respond well."

Elsa gave him another, less forceful hug. "It's all forgiven, Anders."

"I just feel like, when push comes to shove, I don't know how to be anything but a bitter old man..."

"Hey, mind if I join in the apology party?" Kristoff waltzed up behind them, flanked by a stinky reindeer on one side and a less stinky girlfriend on the other. "Elsa, I just wanted to say I'm sorry for losing my head and screaming at you. I should never have freaked you out like that."

Elsa changed the target of her hug from Anders to Kristoff. "It's alright, Kristoff. You were only concerned for Sven. I understand." She turned her head to address everyone present. "We were all put under pressure, and we all did things we're not proud of." She sighed, then added, "Especially me. But there's no one to blame but Daniel."

Anders nodded, but his attention seemed to be fixed on the little legged snowball running between Olympus's hooves nearby. "Your Majesty," he said, "I know you've saved everyone who was an ice-statue, but what about Olaf?"

"Oh." At this, Elsa found herself closing her eyes. The oddest sensation passed though her chest, and then she found herself saying, "Olaf is... already back. And Mary, too. "

"What?" Everyone gave her a confused look.

"How can you tell?" asked Anna.

"I just... can." Elsa glided across the courtyard to gaze at the crimson crystal blade still trapped in a half-melted prism. "And I can sense the other snowmen in this sword. There's so many of them. I can't believe I let myself create so much life..." She flicked a hand, summoning a flurry cloud to keep the prism from melting completely. "But I'll have to deal with them later once things have settled down. Right now, we need to go find Mary."

"The one who stabbed me?" said Anders flatly. "Huzzah."

* * *

A pile of twigs, coal, and a carrot rested on the infirmary floor. It used to be connected to a shapeless mound of snow, but that had melted long ago, the water dissolving back into the magical nothingness from whence it came.

Then, just as the snow outside the window left, the snow inside the window returned, complete with personal flurry. The universe had suddenly remembered that, oh yeah, the reason the big lump of snow atop the two smaller ones was so top-heavy was that it was Olaf's head, and the reason the body supported all that weight was because the Snow Queen wished it, and who are the laws of reality to question the lady in charge?

"-ever and we can go ice-skating and play with more paint and you can give me piggyback- Huh?" Olaf looked around the empty infirmary. "Anders? Where'd you go?"

Olaf's eyes widened. Hadn't Anders just been talking about something where people left this world forever? What if this was just like Elsa and Anna's parents where Olaf never got to see them and everyone got all quiet whenever he brought them up?

Olaf hurried out the infirmary as fast as his stubby legs could carry him, calling out, "Anders? Anders?" The rest of the castle seemed just as empty, but he hardly noticed in his frantic search. At first Olaf checked upstairs in the attic, but then he thought maybe when Anders died, he'd gone the other way, so Olaf ran downstairs to the lowest regions of the castle.

"Anders?" Olaf didn't find his bestest buddy down in the dungeons. What he did find, however, was moaning echoing through the dank stone halls. Olaf let out a gasp. The only logical explanation for that sound was phantoms! (Arendelle Castle was _super_ haunted.) Having always wanted to befriend the shambling souls of the undead, Olaf dashed down the stairs and ran to the source of the sound – one of the dungeon's cells. With the old "nose-lockpick" trick, he got the iron door open and bounced inside.

Olaf gasped at the sight before him. It wasn't a ghost. It was, by all appearances, a teenage girl, except every inch of her was made of ice. She was huddled in the corner of the cell, hugging her knees.

"_Anna__!_ Not again! Man, this is getting to be a bad habit for you!"

But Olaf wasn't expecting the ice-statue to look up at him and wipe the tears from its eyes. "I'm not Anna," she said. "I'm Mary."

Something clicked inside Olaf's nonexistent skull. "Oh yeah! You're my sister!"

But Mary ignored him and let out another sniffle.

"What's wrong?" Olaf hopped across the cell to her. "Why are you crying?"

"I don't know what's happening," said Mary. "I thought I was erased again, but then I woke up here, and Elsa and Anna are gone. I... I don't think they want me anymore..." She resumed sobbing.

"Don't be silly! Of course they want you!" said Olaf, patting Mary's arm with his twig. "You're my new sister, right? I bet Elsa fixed you so you're not defective."

"I... I still _feel_ defective..."

"Hmm..." Olaf examined her carefully. "You don't look defective to me. I'm sure it's nothing a warm hug can't fix." He held out his twig arms, but then he stopped himself. "Wait, you're not gonna melt again if I hug you, are you?"

Mary's icy eyes met the floor. "It doesn't matter."

"Yes it does!" Olaf placed himself right under Mary's chin so he could meet her eyes. "It matters _a lot_. Melting is like going away forever, and people shouldn't have to go away forever. They should always be around so we can play and hug and be happy!"

"So... I won't be erased again?"

"Nope!"

Mary released her knees, then leaned in carefully. She seemed hesitant to put her arms around her brother, but the instant she got close Olaf jumped forward and completed the circuit for her. Mary squeezed him so tight, Olaf was nearly squished into a tube. She started crying again, too, though Olaf wasn't really sure why. Everything seemed pretty happy to him.

"I'm sorry, Olaf... I'm sorry for everything..."

"Hey, Mary," said Olaf. "I'm glad you're not a bitch anymore."

"Me, too."

* * *

Elsa had never been drunk before, but she imagined it felt something like how she felt now. Rationally, she knew nearly freezing all of Arendelle to death _again _was nothing to be giggling about, but every time she tried to recall anything after Daniel dragged her to the Valley of the Living Rock, it came into her head all fuzzy. Much sharper were her memories of playing and laughing and building ice castles. But Elsa wasn't complaining about her magic-induced giddiness – In fact, she was dreading the moment it wore off. She had a bad feeling the guilt was going to come crashing down on her head all at once.

But for now, Elsa's biggest concern was walking downstairs without tripping over herself again. Dealing with Klaus's rebels had been sobering, but it apparently hadn't been sobering enough to stop her from trying to take the stairs two at a time and nearly breaking her neck.

Currently, the party included Elsa, Anna, Anders, and Snowball. Kristoff had gone to scrounge up some carrots for Sven, while Fritz had seemed oddly uneager to linger in Elsa's presence and excused himself to his room.

After a while, the party reached the cell chamber. Elsa tried to remember which cell she'd thrown Anna and Mary in down here, but the magic-induced giddiness apparently thought it'd be a better idea to give her a memory of her and Anna as toddlers baking cookies instead. Luckily, Anna was able to direct them to the proper place.

Elsa sighed and shook her head. She couldn't believe she'd thrown her own sister into a freezing dungeon. What had she been _thinking__?_

And, of course, there was the other issue – namely, the icy woman sitting in the corner of the cell, hugging Olaf like a giant stuffed animal. Honestly, Elsa had been a little surprised to sense Mary's presence alongside Olaf's. Unlike Olaf, she'd created Mary as a result of depression. But, Elsa supposed, that didn't mean Mary didn't deserve to exist.

"Anders!" Olaf dashed across the room to wrap his sticks around Anders's legs. "Phew! You're alive! For a minute there, I thought you'd died of old age already."

"I decided to wait a while longer." For a second, Anders almost slipped up and gave a genuine smile instead of a wry one. He dropped his cane and hunched over to return Olaf's hug.

Elsa watched them for a minute, feeling the giddiness bubbling in her stomach again, but then she caught a pair of icy orbs staring at her. Elsa turned to Mary, who shrank back. For a minute, both of them were silent.

Then Elsa took a step towards her.

"E-Elsa?" Mary got out, cowering. "I'm sorry for- for-" But she was cut off by a pair of pale arms wrapping around her.

"I forgive you, Mary," said Elsa. "We _all_ do." She shot Anders a look.

Anders folded his arms and grumbled, "Well, if you were brainwashed at the time, I _suppose_ I can forgive you for stabbing me..."

Elsa nodded her approval, then turned back to Mary. "I don't want you to blame yourself for anything you did, Mary. You and I are the same. Daniel altered our minds."

"I was wrong." Mary's voice was trembling. "Even before Daniel put his voices in my head, I... I wanted you all to myself. I wormed my way into your mind. But you're not mine and mine alone. We're..." Her eyes flitted towards Anna. "...part of a family."

Elsa smiled. "That's right. I created you, Mary. You're my daughter."

Mary smiled back. "And you're my mama."

"And that makes me your auntie!" added Anna.

Elsa ended the hug and stood beside her sister. "If you want, Mary, you can live on the North Mountain with Marshmallow and the rest of your brothers. But I would like it if you lived here in the castle with Olaf, Anna, and me."

"I would like that, too..." Suddenly, Mary brought a hand to her eyes. Although her face was solid ice, somehow there was water trickling down her cheeks.

Elsa frowned. "Why don't we get out of this dungeon and go somewhere less gloomy?"

The party returned to the entrance staircase, where a legged snowball failed to escape Olaf's notice.

"Wow!" he beamed, scooping up Snowball in his twig arms. "I've got a new baby brother! Man, Elsa, you've been _really _busy making kids, haven't you?"

"Snowball is your cousin, actually," said Elsa. "Well, maybe more like a distant relative..."

"What do you-? Wait!" Anna's eyes went wide. "Don't tell me _Daniel_ made Snowball?" She nearly punted it across the room then and there.

"No, no, it wasn't him," said Elsa. "When I destroyed Brandr's swords, it freed cryomancers he'd imprisoned. One of them made Snowball for me."

"You mean there's _more_ ice-people running around?" Anders nearly blew a gasket.

Elsa shook her head. "They faded away as soon as they were freed. I think they were some kind of spirits."

"Y'know," said Anna, "when my heart was frozen right before we fixed your memories, Snowball found me, and I coulda sworn I saw this creepy ghost girl."

"You mean like the creepy ghost girl you saw in the toilet bowl when you were six?" said Anders dryly.

"_That was real!_"

"I knew it!" said Olaf, enthusiastically holding up his cousin. "Ghosts _are_ real! Snowball must be haunted!"

Snowball made an affronted "_Kree_?"

"If you didn't grasp the concept of death before, how do you even know what ghosts _are__?_" asked Anders.

Olaf looked blank. "They're just floaty see-through things that wear bedsheets on their head, aren't they?"

"Sure, why not?"

After that, the group adjourned to the castle library. Unfortunately, Mary still seemed to be sniffling to herself by the time she entered the room.

"You okay, Mary?" Elsa asked, sitting beside Anna on the loveseat. Mary stayed silent.

"I know what'll cheer you up," said Olaf. "A crackling fire!" He hopped right over to the fireplace and opened the tinderbox.

"But Elsa ended the winter," said Anna. "Isn't it a little too hot for a fire now?"

Olaf gave her an indignant look. "It's _never_ too hot for fire."

Mary shrank back. "But I'll melt..."

"Trust me, it's totally worth it," said Olaf.

Elsa found the conversation turning into a pleasant lull in the back of her head and she stared at the sniffling Mary.

Anna was about to say something, but she was cut off by a delighted, feminine squeal. The sisters shot their heads around to find a crackling fireplace with two snow-people huddled over it. Mary was completely entranced, smiling from cheek to cheek, her hands hovering millimeters from the flames.

Elsa shook her head and conjured up a personal flurry before Mary started dripping on the carpet.


	71. Do You Want to Date a Snowman

Now that the eternal winter was once again gone, there was only one place in all of Arendelle you could find snow: the summit of the North Mountain. Elsa had restored her Ice Palace down to the tiniest detail. This was great because it was almost like Brandr had never gotten his slimy hands on it, but it was less great because when she'd built the Ice Palace, Elsa hadn't meant for it to accommodate an entire army of snowmen.

The last of the new snowmen just barely managed to squeeze inside. The air was filled with dozens upon dozens of personal flurry clouds. The snowmen were crammed around the fountain, on the balcony, in the chandelier-room, all the way up the stairs... Luckily, Olaf, Mary, and Snowball were just tiny enough to fit through the gaps in the crowd. Olaf was running around greeting his new siblings while Mary and Snowball struggled to keep up.

"...and your name is Swab and your name is Sheep and your name is Cream Cheese and your name is Samoyed –That's a kind of dog – and your name is Vanilla Frosting and your name is Flavorless Snowcone-"

"I think that well's run dry," said Mary.

* * *

Meanwhile, out on the Ice Palace's balcony, Elsa and Anna were making the discovery that every last one of their new snowmen was highly cuddly and expected to be kissed on the nose.

"Sheesh, now Olaf's got more brothers than Hans," said Anna. "What are we gonna do with all these guys?"

"They seem happy to stay here," said Elsa. "Maybe I should make them some more ice-houses further down the mountain, though. I can barely move my elbows."

"Yeah, but there's not really much to do on the North Mountain. It's kinda boring." A thought struck Anna. "Come to think of it, what were _you_ planning on doing when you wanted to live alone up here?"

Elsa shrugged. "I didn't exactly plan that far ahead..."

After that, Elsa returned to kissing expectant snowmen on their noses. There were scrambled cries of "Mama! Mama!" as the snowmen bounced around their creator like a pack of puppies.

"Wait your turn!" said an exasperated Elsa. "I love all of you, don't worry..."

"Auntie!" One of the Mini-Marshmallows snuggled up against Anna.

"I think Dandelion Fuzz likes me," she laughed, patting his head.

"Pillow Stuffing," Elsa said flatly.

"What?"

"That one is Pillow Stuffing. Dandelion Fuzz is over there." Elsa pointed across the balcony to a Mini-Marshmallow standing beside three identical brothers.

"How do you _do_ that?"

* * *

Elsa had thought the fallout from one eternal winter had resulted in a lot of paperwork and arguing with her council. The fallout of _two _eternal winters? Ugh. She didn't even want to think about it.

"From my observations, you did more than just end the winter," said the Royal Head of Agriculture from the far end of the table. "After a sudden snowstorm like that, every last plant in Arendelle should be dead. But from what your snowbirds have reported to me, the landscape is lush and green, even where the winter touched our neighboring countries."

"I know," Elsa nodded. "The plants returned to life after the last eternal winter, too."

Honestly, Elsa found the fact that she could raise plants from the dead troubling to say the least. Not as troubling as the fact that she could bring snowmen to life, but still something that raised far too many questions. At least Elsa was confident she couldn't bring back people or animals. That would cross right over the line from "sorceress" to "goddess."

"What about animals?" asked Elsa.

"Not as many were lost as last time," said the Head of Agriculture. "In fact, most of Arendelle's fauna are better equipped for the winter anyways."

(For instance, Kristoff and Anna could personally testify that wolves could survive eternal winters just fine.)

"And...people?" Elsa found herself catching her breath.

"No casualties. Your birds checked thoroughly."

She exhaled.

"People had more sense than to be outside during a blizzard," the advisor said. "And citizens were better prepared for a sudden winter the second time around. They found shelter faster, they'd already unpacked their winter clothing, they decided to stack their firewood with the bark facing sideways because they were sick of arguing about it... That sort of thing."

This news made Elsa's head feel a lot lighter. She couldn't even begin to fathom how lucky she was. What were the odds that not a single person's life had been lost in the winter?

* * *

That loose bar _hadn't_ been Hans imagination after all! He let out a hearty laugh as he sprinted across the frozen ocean, the prison island growing farther and farther behind him. If Hans's knowledge of geography was right, it would only be a short journey to the shores of Arendelle, and from there it would be a simple matter of slaying the queen and saving the kingdom from eternal winter. His plan was going perfectly! Soon enough, Princess Anna would rue the day she'd ever had the gall to punch Hans and throw him in prison for trying to kill her! And then Hans would fulfill his destiny and become king! And his first act as king would be to pretend three of his brothers were invisible for two years! That would show them! _T__hat would show them all! __A__h ha ha! __A__h ha ha ha ha ha ha-_

Somewhere, off in the distance, there was a massive eruption of hot air as every drop of snow in Arendelle shot upwards, becoming a giant snowflake high above the clouds. The next instant, the snowflake exploded and scattered off, leaving nothing behind in Arendelle but a warm day.

And that included the ocean.

_Splash._

"Agh! What the-? _I can't swim! __I__ can't swim!_"

* * *

A shark glided merrily through the waters. It was quite relieved that the ocean's surface had finally thawed. All that ice had been keeping out potential prey. Like that big, stupid thing that was gurgling and thrashing about madly.

* * *

In the middle of one of Arendelle castle's numerous nondescript hallways, a curtain made a distinct and unmistakable giggle.

"_Shh... Kristoff, c'mon..._" From behind said curtain, a certain pigtail-wearing princess emerged and slinked down the hallway, her boyfriend's hand firmly in her own."_I want you to do the thing where you-_"

"Hello," said a voice.

"_Agh!_" The couple spun around to find a pair of icy eyes staring at them. Mary the snowwoman was standing in the hall, giving them an almost wistful look.

"M-Mary?" stammered Anna. "Um, how much of that did you see, exactly?"

Mary's eyes fell on Kristoff. "It must be nice," she said softly.

Kristoff's ears turned a tinge pinker. "What must be nice?"

"Having a partner," said Mary. "Dating."

"Oh." Anna blinked. "You're saying you want a boyfriend?"

Mary nodded. "Or a girlfriend."

"Yeah, sure, that's cool. Whatever floats you're boat."

"I'd take _anyone _who'd have me," Mary added, a note of melancholy in her voice. "I've tried to get to know the people around the castle, but..." She hung her head. "...I think I weird them out too much."

"Aww, it's okay!" Anna immediately released Kristoff so she could give Mary's snow-hair a reassuring pat. "I'm sure the right person for you's out there somewhere."

"Well, no offense, but I could see some, err... _problems_ with having a girlfriend made of freezing cold ice," said Kristoff. "You'd have to find someone pretty desperate."

* * *

Fritz had to shield his face from the radiance of Elsa's dazzling smile. Her throne room was overflowing with sunshine and rainbows.

"I'm so happy to not be brainwashed and evil anymore!" Elsa told him, though it was a little hard to hear her over the classic Scandinavian hymn blaring in the background. "Isn't it wonderful that Anna found a convenient way to fix everything using sisterly love?"

"Uh, yeah, that's great, and I'm happy for you," said Fritz, "but are you sure there's no, like, lasting damage to your psyche from such a traumatic-?"

"Oh, silly, Fritz, you worry too much!" Elsa let out a girlish giggle. "I'm totally fine and suffering no permanent brain damage whatsoever. Now, how about we celebrate by eating a delicious platter of chocolate?"

Elsa pulled a gigantic tray of sweets out of nowhere, but just before she could start inhaling it, her eyes went wide. "Wait... This chocolate is awakening my memories... _of what I almost did to you back when I was evil._"

"Oh no!" gasped Fritz. "_Oh no!_"

"Run, Fritz!" Elsa's ice-dress morphed, her icicle-crown re-formed on her head, and her braid unbraided itself. "I can feel it overtaking me! _I c__an't coooooontrooooool myself!_"

Fritz bolted for the door, but before he could escape, cuffs of ice wrapped themselves around his limbs. He toppled over like a helpless caterpillar.

"I'm evil," said Elsa in a breathy voice. "You're my slave now, and part of you is oddly okay with that."

How did she know?

"And now I'm going to eat this chocolate very slowly right in front of you."

_How did she know?_

_Rap-rap-rap._

Fritz jolted out of the covers. Someone was knocking on his bedroom door. After a bit of fumbling around, Fritz managed to climb out of bed and reach the doorknob to the queen standing in the doorway. It took Fritz a second to realize he wasn't still dreaming.

"Were you still asleep?" Elsa frowned at his long underwear. "It's pretty late in the day, isn't it?"

"Oh, I was just, y'know, wiped out. Turning into an ice statue will do that." Fritz had omitted the part where he'd decided to hide in his room because the peppy, hyperactive Elsa from yesterday had terrified him, and he'd been waiting for her to go back to normal.

"Well, I hope you're not too sleepy to go out with me," said Elsa.

Fritz nearly suffocated on solid air. "Go out? You mean, you and me? Together? Alone?"

"We were supposed to go out to town together, remember?" Elsa gave him a look. "And it wasn't a date."

Fritz's heart narrowly avoided flatlining. "Oh, right. Not a date. Wow, you still remember that after everything that happened?"

Elsa let out a laugh. Maybe it was Fritz's imagination, but it sounded a tiny bit anxious. "I'm just ready for things to get back to normal. Now go ahead and get dressed. I was thinking we could have a picnic. You know, enjoy the weather now that the winter's over."

Right. A picnic. A totally platonic picnic.

Actually... if Fritz didn't know any better, he'd say Elsa was acting weird here. Usually, Fritz was the one being all antsy, but as they walked to the castle courtyard, picnic basket in Fritz's hands, Elsa kept glancing over her shoulder like she was expecting someone.

Once they reached the gates, she stopped their march. "Let's wait here a minute," she said, taking yet another glance over her shoulder.

"Why?" asked Fritz.

"Nothing, nothing." Elsa looked to the left and right, then said, "I just wanted to talk."

"Uh, sure, okay. About what?"

"Well, I know these last few days have been distracting, but I didn't want to forget about you," said Elsa. "Have you been alright? Getting your head frozen _twice _couldn't have been fun."

"Oh yeah, I'm pretty much fine," said Fritz. "I mean, you're the one we should be worried about. All that stuff Daniel did to your mind..."

"Hey, Fritz?" Elsa gave him a look. "You know, with the wight and the faerie gone and all, I don't really need a personal bodyguard anymore. It's about time you got a new job. The older palace staff are practically family, anyways. With a little training, you'd fit right in with Anders, Kai, and Gerda, don't you think?"

"R-Really?"

Elsa flashed Fritz another smile. "You're a real diamond in the rough, you know that? Your parents were just as horrible as Daniel's, and look how you turned out. You're a better man than he could ever be."

Fritz must have had something in his eye. "You mean that?"

Elsa smiled. "I do."

"Well, I know you don't want to date me, but..." When Elsa glanced away, Fritz stealthily blew his nose on his sleeve. "...but like you said, who knows what'll happen in the future, right? Maybe you'll feel a completely different way about m-?"

"Oh dear!" Elsa suddenly said, her eyes landing on the far side of the courtyard. "I just remembered something I have to go do. I'm so sorry, but I won't be able to go on the outing with you."

"What?" Fritz's face fell. "Well, that's okay. We can put it off until later-"

"No, no, I won't let your day be ruined just because of me." Was Fritz hearing things, or was there was a theatrical quality to Elsa's voice? "You'll just have to go without me. If only there was someone else who could... Oh, you're in luck." She pointed behind him. "Here, let me introduce you to Mary."

Fritz slowly turned around. His jaw dropped.

Imagine someone took the numerous, _numerous _best features of Elsa and fused them with a couple key features from Anna. Mary's face held all the womanliness of Elsa's while also having a couple splotches of frost standing in for Anna's freckles. And there was something else about Mary's face – something Fritz couldn't quite put his finger on – that made her far more attractive than merely the sum total of the sisters would be (Unbeknownst to Fritz, Elsa had partly based Mary's look off of her mother. Make of that what you will).

Y'know, you'd think being human would be an important part of looking drop-dead gorgeous, but somehow Mary's soft, flexible, semi-transparent ice-skin only added to her glamour. Her snowy, white hair had been put in a plainer, non-French braid, probably to differentiate from Elsa's, and thanks to the cute little cloud above Mary's head, it was sprinkled with snowflakes. And don't even get Fritz started on those striking blue eyes, the irises and pupils apparently made by layering different thicknesses of frost.

Standing side-by-side, Fritz could see that, even with a pair of ice-heels on, the snowwoman was nearly a head shorter than her creator. That made her exactly the right size for Fritz! He wouldn't have to get up on his tippy toes to kiss her!

_Kiss her..._The thought made Fritz lightheaded.

He looked from Mary to Elsa. Mary had on her own version of the ice-dress. It was a darker shade of blue that, while keeping her legs hidden, left her arms and pretty much everything from the shoulders up totally bare.

"I, ah, uh, err, hi, I'm F-Fuh..." After a bit of straining, Fritz managed to remember his name. "Fritz."

His cheeks were growing about as hot as they could get, while Mary's actually seemed to be getting colder. Frost accumulated on them – her version of blushing. "I'm Mary," she said, fiddling with her braid. Her voice, too, sounded like a blend of Elsa's and Anna's, though even softer than either one's.

"I'll just leave you two alone..." Elsa hurriedly vamoosed through the castle's front door.

Fritz watched her go with a vague sense of longing in his stomach. Call him crazy, but Fritz couldn't shake the feeling that there was a conspiracy going on here to set him up with somebody besides Elsa. This was heresy, of course, because Elsa was the most perfect being on the face of the planet, and no other woman could possibly... could possibly...

Fritz found his eyes drifting back towards Mary. She jerked her head away and made an effort to look like she hadn't been staring at him.

"D-Do you want to... to go out... somewhere?" Mary stuttered. "And do...?"

"Stuff?" offered Fritz.

"Yes, stuff."

"Right, right," said Fritz. "We will go do... stuff... together."

Fritz took one last glance back in Elsa's general direction. He thought about how Elsa was perfect and gorgeous and his soul mate and one day if he wished really, really hard, they would get married and live happily ever after.

But then Mary took a cautious step towards him, brushed a strand of snowy hair out of her face, and, with her cheeks almost completely frosted over, reached for his hand. Her palm was slippery and cold and yet... soft. Suddenly, Elsa felt a lot further away.

Oh, what the heck. Fritz walked out the castle gates with a picnic basket in one hand and Mary in the other. He wasn't exactly in a position to be turning his nose up at this. After all, good things so rarely happened to Fritz Herman Gudmund.

* * *

Her mama, Mary knew, had never intended for Mary to have any interest in romance. Elsa had been eight, and frankly, she _still_ didn't seem too interested in it now that she was in her twenties.

The day Elsa had killed that cat, she'd started to form the crude beginnings of Mary's body in the middle of her snowstorm. One of the first things Mary had ever seen was Elsa's papa giving Elsa's mama a passionate kiss on the lips before diving into the snowstorm with sedative in hand. It was an image that had stuck with Mary.

And now, in the present day, this boy was reminding her of the way she'd wormed into Elsa's mind and forced her to love Mary. The difference was, Mary hadn't touched this boy's mind at all, yet he looked nonetheless completely entranced. His eyes were fixed on her like she was some goddess descended from on high, and Mary couldn't get enough of it.

They'd found a nice little patch of grass just outside town. Fritz lay down a blanket and unpacked the picnic basket.

Elsa's magic had left Arendelle much cooler, though Mary probably still would've melted if not for the personal flurry hovering over her head. Mary was sorely tempted to swat the flurry cloud away. She completely understood why her brother was so eager to melt himself now. After all, turning into a puddle couldn't possibly be that bad when the heat felt _so good_.

"So..." Fritz took a bite of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (Anna had packed the lunch for them, so that was an inside joke). "Do you, uh... eat food?" He offered her the other half.

"I'm not sure," she admitted. "I never really feel hungry, but I have a sense of taste, so I guess I _could_... except I don't have a stomach."

"Yeah, that, err, might pose a problem," said Fritz. "Anyways, I don't think I've seen you around before. I'm guessing you're a snowman?"

"Snow-_woman_. But yes, Elsa made me. She's my mama." Mary hesitated before seating herself on the blanket directly beside him.

"Uh, yeah." Fritz seemed to shift uncomfortably at this. "I'm... I'm glad you've got a good mom. _My_ momma wasn't the best person ever."

"I'm sorry."

"Well, she's in jail now," said Fritz. "Maybe I'll go visit her one of these days..."

"I'm sure she would like that," Mary placed her hands against the rim of her bowl, taking in the warmth. "Sometimes people do bad things because they feel abandoned and unloved, but they deserve second chances, don't they?"

"Yeah..." Fritz stared off into space. "I mean, my dad... didn't treat her too well. I guess it kinda messed her up, y'know? But she's still my momma..."

"A family's a family no matter what."

Fritz nodded, then shut his eyes. "But... I'm never living with her again. My home is _here_ now. With Elsa and Anna."

"And me?"

Fritz smiled up at her. Mary's insides were solid ice, so she didn't have a tummy, but she was getting butterflies _somewhere_. "Yeah. And you."

Mary drew closer towards him. Her face paused inches from his. She seemed to falter for a moment. "Do... Do you want to kiss?"

"_Yes!_" Fritz said immediately. "You! I mean, I want to kiss you while you're kissing me so that we're both being kissed but no one's doing the kissing! Wait, what?"

His voice trailed off as he shut his eyes. Mary wasn't sure why people shut their eyes for these things – That was just how it was done.

Since the invention of the kiss, there have been five kisses that were rated the most passionate, the most pure. This one would have been a really strong contender for sixth or seventh place.

Several seconds later, Mary opened her eyes, smiled, and asked, "Did you like it?"

"Yeah! Mah wips ah numb, buh ah dun mind, weally!"

* * *

Elsa plopped herself down on one of the comfier couches in the gallery. Anna was there waiting for her, vibrating in place from sheer, unbridled excitement.

"How'd it go?"

"I think your plan worked." Elsa let out a sigh. "Hopefully this will mean the end of Fritz pining after me."

Anna giggled. "Oh, come on, Elsa, even if you weren't interested in him, you've gotta admit it was really cute."

"It was flattering," said Elsa, "but it got a little old after a while."

"Well, sorry for trying to hook you up with him. I never meant to pester you so much about it."

"Hey-" Elsa smiled and reached for Anna's hand. "-you saved me from being a brainwashed lunatic. We shut each other out for over a _decade_. So what if you get on my nerves sometimes? You're my sister – I wouldn't trade you for anything." They shared a hug.

Then Anna shot Elsa a smirk and wiggled her eyebrows. "So, are you gonna make snow-girlfriends for _all_ the boys with crushes on you?"

Elsa rolled her eyes.

"You sure you don't have any last-minute regrets, Elsa? I bet Fritz is falling for Mary as we speak. Your last chance with him is slipping away."

"Oh no, you're right," said Elsa dryly. "Now I'll have to suffer through being single. How horrifying."

She was just about to head inside for the night when a voice called out, "Mama! Mama!" Elsa and Anna spun around to find a gorgeous snowwoman running towards them through the doorway, leading a scrawny boy by the arm.

"How'd it go?" smiled Elsa.

"What took you so long?" Anna gave a knowing smirk towards Fritz's lips, which were almost solid blue. "Or can we guess?"

For being the physical manifestation of Elsa's depression, Mary had a surprisingly large smile on her face. She turned to Fritz. "Do you want to tell them?"

"Yuh shud pwobuhwy do da toking fuh now," said Fritz.

Mary leaned in like she was spilling some big secret and said, "We're dating!"

"That's wonderful." Sure, most of Elsa's joy stemmed from the fact that she no longer had to worry about a hormone-addled teenage boy chasing after her, but that didn't mean she wasn't genuinely happy for them.

"I love having a boyfriend!" Mary said, suddenly wrapping herself around Fritz's arm and dragging him towards the castle. "And I love kissing him! We're going to do lots more kissing! All the time!"

Fritz made a squeak that was half-delighted, half-terrified, then vanished with his girlfriend behind the palace doors.

"We should probably stop them before she gives Fritz hypothermia," said Anna.

* * *

"You have a fireplace in here?" Mary let out a delighted gasp, then locked Fritz's bedroom door behind them and ran to the tinderbox to get the logs roaring.

"Uh, yeah." Fritz's face had gone much hotter than the flames could ever hope to be. "I think I'm getting some feeling back in my lips."

Mary gave him a sly smile. "Not for long, you're not." She let out a little moan as she and her boyfriend sat before the crackling fire, her face drawing nearer to his. "Oh, I love heat _so much_..."

Fritz had to shake the mental image of making out with Olaf.

* * *

He'd played many roles in his life. Prince Hans, invisible little brother. Prince Hans, loving fiancé. Prince Hans, vile criminal.

Prince Hans, _shark wrangler_.

Now _it_ was the one thrashing helplessly as Hans's fist smashed into its gills again and again until finally the beast turned tail and retreated back into the murky depths.

Hans let out a triumphant laugh. He'd done it! Well, of course he'd done it. Hans had bested a giant snow-monster and an evil sorceress. That shark hadn't stood a chance, really. This was further proof of Hans's divinely-instilled right to greatness. No obstacle, least of all some mindless fish, was going to stop him from fulfilling his destiny of becoming king of Arendelle!

He turned his head to the left and right. No land in sight. Well, no big deal. Hans happened to be gifted with a vastly superior brain. He could think his way out of this predicament _easily_.

Hans bobbed up and down in the waves. Somewhere, off in the distance, a seagull squawked.


	72. Love and War

"Guh..."

Hans slowly opened his eyes. His cheek was pressed against something warm. _Sand_. Hans coughed up water, then pulled himself to his feet. He was alive... _He was alive! _Solid land had never looked so beautiful. The sunrise was beautiful, the shells littering the beach were beautiful, the white bird perched a foot from his face was beautiful-

"Are you Prince Hans of the Southern Isles?" asked the bird.

Hans shrieked and tumbled backwards, his butt smashing into the sand. Had that bird just talked? Hans must have swallowed too much sea water.

"Judging by those sideburns, I assume you are," said the bird.

The realization struck him all at once. This talking bird... its eyes, beak, and talons were clear and shiny, and its feathers were pure white. As white as... snow.

Oh poop.

Hans tried to run for it, but he'd just spent he-didn't-know-how-many days adrift at sea, so he didn't exactly get far. The next thing he knew, countless identical birds were swooping out of the sky and surrounding him. Two of them twisted and grew until they'd become monstrous creatures with talons large enough to carry Hans aloft – which is exactly what they did.

"Stay away from me! Stay a- _Aaaaaaaaaagh!_"

* * *

"Fired? What do you mean, I'm fired?"

One of the gray-haired advisors had stood out of his seat, glaring across the council table towards the woman in her icy throne, who was coolly meeting his gaze.

"I mean that you're fired," said Elsa. "You never contribute any valuable ideas. All you do is sit in the back and make sexist remarks under your breath."

The man gathered up his things and stormed out the room, muttering, "Bet you wouldn't have fired me if you'd been a _man_."

The whole council stared at their queen. They'd been pretty terrified of her before, but the second eternal winter had been the last straw. Several advisors had actually started addressing her as "supreme overlord of Arendelle" and begging her not to hurt them, and they still seemed to be trembling in her presence no matter how much she reassured them she was quite sane and uninterested in ruling everyone with an iron fist.

So Elsa had decided she might as well use her new reputation to her advantage.

"I've been much too lenient with this council," she announced. "From now on, there will be strict order and discipline. If anybody wastes my time or tries my patience, I won't hesitate to fire them. Do I make myself clear?"

There were mostly cries of "Yes, Queen Elsa!" but still a couple "Yes, Supreme Overlord Elsa!" She'd have to work on that.

"And I already have a man in mind to fill this council's new opening." Elsa gestured to the door just as another gray-haired man entered, leaning against a cane. "In light of his injury, Anders needs a job where he can be on his feet less than he would as butler and chief of staff."

"And frankly, this council could use someone with actual intelligence on it," said Anders, seating himself.

Elsa nodded, then turned back towards the room. "Now, the next order of business is that bill we were-"

"Err, actually, Your Majesty, I just received word of a slightly more pressing issue from one of your snowbirds," said Anders.

"Really?" Elsa frowned. "What is it?"

"Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but-"

Just then, the doors swung open again, and a pair of monster-snowbirds swooped in with a flailing man in their claws. He was so scrawny and waterlogged beneath his soaking wet, plain gray prison uniform that Elsa wouldn't have recognized him if not for those unmistakable sideburns.

"_Hans?_" She sprang to her feet.

The snowbirds dropped him onto the carpet, then shrank back down and perched themselves on the table before their creator.

"Huh, that's unexpected," said Anders, "but that's not what I was-"

"Queen Elsa-" Hans tried to pull himself to his feet, but this became a lot harder once his arms and legs found themselves bound by ice.

"What's _he_ doing here?" demanded Elsa, her pulse quickening.

"We found him washed up on a beach a couple miles down the coastline," said a snowbird. "We assumed you would want him brought to you."

Elsa stroked its head. "Good job, little guy." Then she turned to Hans, and her face grew considerably less soft. "Well, you must have quite the story to tell."

Hans's mouth went a million miles a minute:

"Queen Elsa, thank goodness you've found me! There's been a horrible mistake! I was wrongfully imprisoned! I never tried to kill your sister! Her frozen heart must have given her some sort of hallucination-"

"It's a little late to be saving face, Hans," cut in Elsa. "Now stop embarrassing yourself and tell the truth for once."

Hans allowed his face to twist into a scowl. "Fine, I suppose there's no point masking my contempt for you, _sorceress_. Congratulations on sending Arendelle into eternal winter for a second time, by the way. I really didn't think you'd actually be stupid enough to-"

The door swung open.

"Elsa, Elsa! You'll never guess what I just-" Anna froze. Then she rubbed her eyes and slowly turned her head in Hans's direction.

For a solid minute, the two of them stared at each other in silence.

"Hi," said Hans.

You could hear the impact of fist on face from the other side of the castle.

"Good to see you, too," said Hans, though his voice was a bit muffled by the carpet.

"What's going on?" demanded Anna.

"I know about as much as you do," said Elsa. "My snowbirds just found him washed up on a beach somewhere."

Anna turned to scowl at Hans, who was trying in vain to sit up straight with his limbs bound in ice. "Alright, then, spill your guts. How'd you escape jail?"

"Shoddy prison construction," said Hans. "One of the bars came right off my cell with a little elbow grease." (Give or take ten hours.)

"Well, then, we'll be sure to throw you in a sturdier prison this time," said Elsa. "Now, if that's all, I've already seen more of your face today than I'd planned on seeing for the rest of my life."

"Hold up," said Anders. "It doesn't sound like this nonsense with Hans actually relates to what I was going to-"

"Wait, wait!" cut in Hans, his voice going higher. "The prison staff abused me! When your eternal winter started crossing the ocean, they evacuated every single prisoner except me! I was left in my cell to die!"

"So let me get this straight," said Anna. "Someone locked you in a room to freeze to death?" She brought a hand to her mouth and snickered loudly.

"Yes, the irony is staggering," Hans deadpanned. "You know, I was tried for my crimes at the Southern Isles. Legally, I'm not a criminal in Arendelle's court system."

"Oh, yes, thank you, that is a very good point, Hans." Elsa could have frozen him with the ice in her voice alone. "As Queen of Arendelle, I hereby place you under arrest for bruising the princess' fist with your face."

"Oh, _come on_, now you're just being petty!" spat Hans.

"Do you want to be a repeat felon?" Anna spat back.

"Is anybody listening to me?" said Anders. "I have something important to say here-"

"Now the question is, what do we do with Hans?" Elsa wondered aloud. "He was at a joint prison between our country and his. We could send him back there, except as far as my snowbirds have seen, the prison ship hasn't returned to the island yet. I guess we could leave him in a regular prison..."

"A regular prison's too good for him," grumbled Anna.

"Or we could send him back to the Southern Isles and let his brothers deal with him again," said Elsa.

"_Or maybe that's a bad idea because the Southern Isles just declared war on us_!"

Every head shot towards a certain crotchety old man.

"Oh, I'm sorry," said Anders, "should I have mentioned that sooner?"

For a moment, everyone in the council chamber just stood there, staring at Anders stupidly.

Then Hans burst out laughing. "Oh, that's priceless! Looks like my- _mmph mmph mmph._" His voice was slightly muffled by ice, but it sounded no less pompous.

Elsa took a very, _very_ deep breath and did her best to remain rigid on her throne. "The Southern Isles declared war on us? You're _sure_, Anders?"

"That or they're sending an armada of warships to spread joy and warm feelings," said Anders.

Elsa glanced at Anna, whose eyes seemed to be fixed on Hans, quivering. Then Elsa turned to a snowbird perched on the table before her. "Tell me everything you told Anders."

The bird nodded obediently. "My brothers and I spotted a massive fleet of ships converging on Arendelle, flying the flags of both the Southern Isles and Weaseltown. Your second eternal winter crossed over the ocean, Your Majesty. The ice most likely drew too close to their borders for their liking."

Elsa pursed her lips. "So they feel threatened by me?" She turned to address her council. "Well, my mind is back to normal now. Maybe they'll listen to reason?"

"The Duke of Weaseltown was spotted aboard one of the ships," said the snowbird. "He seems to be leading the charge."

Elsa faltered. "The Duke... _might_ listen to reason..."

"Your last meeting ended with you summoning a pair of snow monsters to throw him onto his boat," said Anders. "He's going to want your head on a platter even if he _is_ listening to reason."

"So what will it be, Your Majesty?" said the ex-head of council. "Should we send a diplomat while Admiral Klaus readies the navy? Negotiate peace while preparing for the worst?"

Elsa found herself hesitating. The answer, she knew, was a frightening one... but it was also the _right_ answer. "There's no need to risk our soldiers' lives when I can handle this myself."

A hush fell over the council.

"A-Are you sure?" sputtered the ex-head. "This isn't a handful of rebels, Your Majesty. We're talking about an _entire fleet_ of warships."

"Is the fleet bigger than all of Arendelle?" countered Elsa. "I have perfect control of my powers now. There's no reason I can't freeze the ocean beneath the ships."

"But what if they're expecting that?" Anna spoke up from the doorway. "What if they've got another ice-eating sword or a sorcerer of their own or, like, a some kinda urn that can suck you up and-?"

"I've dealt with Brandr, haven't I?" Elsa gave her the most reassuring smile she could muster. "I don't see how they could possibly have anything worse than him."

"Well... maybe there's a way we can find out." Anna's eyes fell on the bound-and-gagged Hans. "You up for some good old-fashioned interrogation?"

Elsa nodded, then unfroze the ice over Hans's mouth with a swish of her hand. "Alright, Hans, tell us everything you know about the Southern Isles' military tactics."

"Or what?" spat Hans.

"Or I'll leave you tied up and alone with Anna for ten minutes."

Hans's eyes drifted towards Anna. She cracked her knuckles.

"Magic is practically unheard of in the Southern Isles," Hans reluctantly said. "And the rest of Weaseltown is every bit as scared of it as their duke. They'd never touch magic, not even to use against you. They probably just assume they can overpower you through sheer numbers. You know, kind of like what I did."

"Ugh, can we gag him again?" huffed Anna.

"What do you want us to do with him, Anna?" asked Elsa. "We can either put him in an Arendelle prison or return him to the Southern Isles. From the sounds of things, our prisons are more humane."

"Well, when you put it that way, the choice is easy," Anna smirked.

Hans let out another laugh. "Really, Anna? You want to return me to the Southern Isles? Something tells me after the queen here freezes a whole armada, my brothers will be a little less skeptical of my side of the story. Why would they keep me imprisoned for trying to save a country from a dangerous sorceress and her sister who, for all I knew, could've _also _been a dangerous sorceress?"

"I wish," said Anna. "Trust me, if I had magic, your butt would be crammed with _so many_ icicles right now..."

"Wait a minute." Elsa's eyes narrowed. "If you're so sure your brothers would let you walk free, why would you tell us that?"

Hans paled. "I just... assumed you wouldn't be that stupid."

"Weren't you begging that French dignitary not to ship you off to your brothers last time?" The workings of a smile played on Elsa's lips. "What was that rumor going around? That they publicly humiliated you by-?"

"_They never spanked me! That was a vicious lie __they__ spread to undermine my-!_"

"Ooh, _someone's_ turning red," said Anna.

"Looks like that's settled, then," said Elsa. "We're returning Hans to the other Westergaard princes."

"So _that's_ his last name..." Anna muttered to herself.

Hans might have been handsome once, but weeks in prison and days at sea had left his face gaunt, and when twisted with rage, it could give Daniel's a run for its money. "Do you have any idea how hard it was to pretend I could actually tolerate you?" he snarled at Anna.

"Yeah, well, I always thought your sideburns were stupid and ugly, and I was just too polite to say it."

For a second, genuine hurt passed Hans's angry facade.

"Alright, that's enough," said Elsa, rising to her feet. "Let's get Hans out of here before he upsets you any more, Anna." She motioned towards the pair of snowbirds, who grew back into their monster-forms. "Looks like I've decided on a course of action."

"So that's it, then?" Hans scowled. "You're just so powerful that no mortal army can stand a chance? I bet having all that power feels good, doesn't it, sorceress? Must be nice to have it all handed to you on a silver platter, never having to earn a thing while other people spend their lives slaving away for nothing."

"No, actually." Elsa pointed her palm at him. "Having to live every day for years horrified of killing people _wasn't_ particularly nice. But unlike you, I have no desire to take a life. I'll give people no reason to fear me. I'm going to end this war before it begins, and I'm going to do it without spilling a single drop of blood."

Hans let out his loudest laugh yet. "You think this can end _peacefully__?_ You're even more naïve than I thought! I hope you realize my failure to kill you and your trained monkey of a sister is going to go down in history as Arendelle's greatest- _mmph mmph mmph!_"

* * *

Even before she'd lost her parents to it, the ocean had always frightened Elsa. The way the water stretched out over the horizon, it looked like it went on forever... But, of course, drowning wasn't really much of a threat when you could freeze the ice at your feet with a thought.

Elsa had created an ice-path straight miles out from the harbor, and now she, her snowman and snowbirds, and the captive Hans were all waiting anxiously as a massive fleet of ships drew nearer over the purple sunset. The combined armada of the Southern Isles and Weaseltown.

Elsa clutched her stomach in spite of herself. There was really no need to feel anxious – a couple mortal weapons were nothing compared to Daniel and Brandr – but Elsa could hardly help herself. Every time she shut her eyes or even stared off into space too long, her vision was filled with torches and mobs and those alien thoughts running through her head...

_I am the winter and winter means death and the mortals will always-_

She shook herself out of it, letting the biting wind in her face wake her up. There were sails looming on the horizon.

Once the ships were in sight, Elsa had her monster-sized snowbirds scoop Hans and herself up in their talons. With his arms and legs frozen together, Hans looked like a worm they'd caught, and he probably would've been screaming his lungs out if not for the ice over his mouth.

"_Sorceress__!_"

It didn't take long for the ships' crew to spot the Snow Queen. And it took even less time for them to ready their cannons.

In the history books of Arendelle, the Southern Isles-Weaseltown War would be remembered as the nation's longest, bloodiest battle under Queen Elsa's rule. The Isle's navy, let by the headstrong Admiral Westergaard, would be considered the bravest in the nation's history, but also the stupidest seeing as they didn't back off the instant they learned Arendelle was being ruled by a supremely powerful sorceress. They actually managed to get some cannonballs in the air before the Snow Queen threw out her hands.

The Southern Isles-Weaseltown War lasted four seconds.

* * *

Eventually, the icy vapors died down, and countless soldiers and crew members swore in shock as they came to the realization that 1) all of their weapons had been cased in ice, 2) the ocean around their ships had been frozen solid, and 3) the Snow Queen was standing on the ice at the head of the fleet, staring down every last one of them.

The snowbirds deposited Hans and Elsa on the deck of the head ship while the snowmen army set to work surrounding the dozens and dozens of ships on the frozen ocean. Of course, there were way too many people here to address all at once, so Elsa had simply found the ship that looked like it had the most Westergaard princes on it. She could pick out Hans's brothers because they were the ones with faces she impulsively wanted to smack. They didn't look too happy to see her land on their ship, so Elsa froze all their feet to the floor. She figured they couldn't do much harm that way.

Every last person aboard the ship was left staring at Elsa, paralyzed with awe.

"Good afternoon," said Elsa. "I am Queen Elsa of Arendelle." She glanced back at the frozen ocean, then chuckled. "But I'm sure you've figured that out already. I came here to let you know that, whatever you may have heard, I'm very sane now, and my powers are perfectly under control, so I'm not going to trouble your nations if you don't trouble mine. I'm not interested in having a war with you, and, frankly, you would lose anyways. You see those?"

She gestured to a couple mini-Marshmallows standing off to the side of the ship. "Those are my snowmen. They don't tire or feel pain, and your weapons are useless against them. I've actually argued with my council about whether I should entirely replace the military with them, and I certainly don't want to use them to terrorize other nations – They're really very gentle creatures. That one over there is named Oatmeal and she's the sweetest snow-person you'll ever... But I digress. The point is, I would appreciate it if, as soon as I unfreeze everything, you turned your ships around and returned to your own countries. My snowbirds are watching the borders of Arendelle, so I'll know if you don't comply, and it would be a shame if I had to use brute force on you. Oh, one last thing."

The monster-snowbirds flew up and dropped Hans on the deck. "You can have your brother back. Apparently the guards left him to die when they evacuated his prison. You might want to do something to quell that kind of abuse. But Prince Hans is _your_ prisoner – I wash my hands of him. Make sure I never see his face again. I'll send a diplomat to pick up the Arendelle prisoners that evacuated to the Southern Isles, and then we can decide if we want to keep up that joint prison or not. One of my close friends has a mother imprisoned there, and he'd like to see her again.

"That's all I have to say. Spread the word to the other ships."

Elsa gave a polite pause at the end of her speech, but the residents of the warship just stared at her, slack-jawed, so after a minute she said, "Goodbye" and excused herself off the deck.

* * *

And thus concluded the longest, bloodiest war of Queen Elsa's reign. Oh, in case you were wondering about the "bloodiest" part, the war resulted in exactly one injury. When he saw the Snow Queen freeze the ocean and call down an army of snowmen, the Duke of Weaseltown panicked and jumped off his boat, at which point he slipped on ice and sprained his neck.

Anyways, Elsa's little display was more than enough to convince the armada to turn around and sail the heck out of there.

"What are you doing? Let me out!" Hans shook the bars as hard as he could, but the brig on his eldest brother's personal warship happened to be much less shoddily constructed. "I'm not a criminal! Queen Elsa is a monster! I was just trying to save innocent lives! Hello? Look, can you at least get me some food? I haven't eaten in days! I'm going to starve! Hello? _Hello__?_"

In his brother's defense, it was really easy to forget to feed someone who was invisible.

* * *

A white horse slinked into a set of royal stables, which were painted with a sun insignia.

"Any luck?" A girl was standing in there, awaiting his arrival. She was stunningly beautiful, wearing a pink dress with her brunette hair cut super short (It was a long story).

The horse bowed his head. The frying pan in his mouth clinked to the floor.

"Aww, don't worry..." The girl bounced over to give him a reassuring scratch beneath his chin. "We'll find your twin brother someday."

"You mean _this _twin brother?" said a voice from the entrance.

The girl and horse shot their heads around to find a ruggedly handsome man – a ring on his finger matching the girl's – leading a highly similar-looking horse into the stables.

"You found Olympus!" The girl dashed over to give her husband a big hug while the horse let out a delighted whinny and trotted straight for his bro, nuzzling his neck.

Olympus used the ancient language of horse facial expressions to convey the idea to his brother that some maniac had kidnapped him, he'd had the absolute worst time of his life, and he was very, _very _relieved to be back home.

"Where was he?" asked the girl.

"Would you believe he was in Arendelle?" said her husband.

"_What_? No way! How'd Olympus get all the way up north?"

"Beats me. They just sent him back on a boat with a diplomat saying it was a long story. Invited us to Arendelle's next ball, too."

The girl's face lit up. "Ooh! Ooh! We should go!"

"Speak for yourself. I had more than enough of Arendelle at that coronation. I've still got snow in places I didn't even know I had. And I hear the queen froze everything _again_, so clearly this is some kinda pathological problem for her."

The girl gave him a stern look. "That was just an accident. The queen seemed really nice, and we never got to meet her sister last time."

"Yeah, yeah, I guess we can go," her husband shrugged. "But if we don't get snowed in again, it's probably just gonna be boring. I mean, the queen's sister was raised in a castle and stuff. I bet she's all prim and proper. You're gonna have nothing in common with her..."

* * *

A large passenger ship pulled into a harbor, from which a trail led into a nearby little town full of little people.

"Bonjour, Samson!"

One of the villagers – a midget with a freakishly large nose and some missing teeth – cheerfully greeted the behemoth of a man as he walked down the ship's ramp, suitcase in hand, his luscious, curly black hair and perpetually visible patch of chest hair blowing in the breeze.

"Good to see you, old friend!" Samson said, flashing him a dazzling smile. "It's been too long. Now, where's my cousin? I can't wait to see him again!"

But at this, the man's face grew solemn. "Oh, you haven't heard. Well, I'm sorry to tell you this, Samson, but... he died."

Samson's smile evaporated. "_No_. What happened?"

"Oh, it was horrible, just horrible," said the man, bringing a hand to his brow. "He fell off a castle and plummeted to his death. I'd never seen anything like it. _No one_ dies like he did."


	73. Trial by Ice

"You're awesome. Has anyone ever told you that?"

The royal sisters were sitting across from each other inside a carriage, which was bouncing merrily through the streets of Arendelle's capital. They were having some difficulty stopping themselves from grinning like a pair of loons.

"Oh, it was no big deal," said Elsa, making a show of flicking her braid over her shoulder. "I just single handedly ended a war and saved countless lives, that's all."

"And more importantly, you made Hans's brothers pee their pants," said Anna.

"_Anna_." Elsa did her best to look like she'd been offended by that obscenity, but it was somewhat undermined by her laughter.

Eventually, the carriage rolled to a stop and the sisters climbed out. A handful of guards escorted them across the street towards a flat at the edge of the village.

"Be on your best behavior," Elsa instructed as they neared the front door. "I'm sure it's still an upsetting subject for Mrs. Dale, so we need to have some pleasant conversation before we bring up Emma."

"Yeah, yeah, I know." Frankly, Anna didn't look particularly excited to be here.

"And we'll have to introduce ourselves to Mrs. Dale's friend, too. The one she's been staying with."

"I know how to be polite, Elsa," Anna said with a slight roll of her eyes. The door was answered by a white-haired man. "_Hey!_ You're that jerk who was rude to Elsa!"

"_Anna!_" Elsa hissed through gritted teeth.

Anna gave a start, then added, "And it is a _pleasure_ to see you again!"

Elsa barely concealed a sigh. "Admiral Klaus? I wasn't aware this was your flat."

"It's not," Klaus said tersely. "I gave it to Olive. It's hers once I sail off at the end of the week. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some business in town." And with that, he pushed past the guards and down the street.

As soon as he was gone, Mrs. Dale hurried to the door and ushered the girls inside. "Sorry about him. He can be a little distant."

Klaus's flat looked like it'd hardly been touched since he moved in. The only signs of life were a couple of Mrs. Dale's personal belongings – knitting needles, a portrait of her, Adrian, and Emma in happier times, a ragdoll that Elsa recognized from Mrs. Dale's old house...

"I didn't know you knew Klaus," said Elsa.

"Yeah, small world," said Anna.

Mrs. Dale nodded. "He's an old friend."

"Did he call you Olive?" Anna asked. "That's a pretty name. I guess me and Elsa never got on a first name basis with you..."

Mrs. Dale flashed Anna a smile, then brushed back a strand of her curly gray hair. "You can call me Olive. We're all friends here. Why don't you sit down? I can get you and your guards some tea..."

True to her word, Anna refrained from blurting out anything about Emma as they gathered around the kitchen table, exchanging banal pleasantries. Elsa welcomed the slower atmosphere, but she couldn't help but notice Anna fidgeting in her seat. Frankly, Anna wasn't the best at dealing with the elderly. Or putting on a refined air. Or sitting still for longer than two minutes.

Of course, Elsa wasn't exactly entranced by the conversation, either. They mostly talked about the cause and aftermath of Elsa's winter, and Elsa made sure to thank Mrs. Dale – or rather, Olive – for her help calming the panicked townsfolk. Every parent of every infant in the village had Olive to thank for saving their children from the changelings.

Elsa found her eyes wandering towards the portrait hanging on the wall. A beautiful little girl stared back at her, her ebony hair not yet marred by white. And, more unsettling, a large, broad-shouldered man stood at her side, a genuine smile on his face. No matter how long she stared, Elsa just couldn't reconcile that man with Adrian Dale.

Olive sat up in her chair. She seemed to notice where Elsa's eyes were going. "You can never really know a person," she said softly. "Adrian and I were together for decades of our life. I never... never would've thought..."

This seemed to jolt Anna into the conversation. She placed a hand over Olive's. "It really sucks to find out the guy you love is some murdering psycho."

"You be careful who you choose to spend the rest of your life with, Princess Anna." Olive shut her eyes. "Don't end up like me... living my twilight years alone..." Both sisters impulsively stepped forward to hug her.

"You are _always_ welcome at our home, Olive," said Elsa.

Olive could only nod feebly. "And now, after all this time, I learn that I've been betrayed by a man I loved _twice_. That the boy I spent years mourning returned to this world as a monster, hunted me down... and murdered my daughter."

A mixture of surprise and concern crossed the sisters' faces.

"What are you saying?" asked Elsa.

Olive brought a hand to her eyes. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I should've told you sooner."

Before Daniel revealed himself as the wight, Elsa had already been a bit suspicious of him. The revelation hadn't shocked her to her core. Not like this. Olive told the sisters every detail, from the ice-rose to her frostbitten arm – which, when she rolled up her sleeve for them, still had a black tinge to it.

"I loved him," Olive finished. "I loved him every day I spent in Arendelle. Loved him when I finally caved in and married Adrian. It's why I waited so long to have a child. I _still_ love Daniel. But I see now that even when I knew him, he was on a path... a path that led to the Daniel you knew. I guess I'm just... drawn to these kinds of men."

"And that's why he came to Arendelle?" said Elsa, disbelief gripping her voice. "That's how he found me as a child?"

Olive nodded. "My family moved to Arendelle to _escape_ magic. When I learned you had the same sorcery as Daniel, I... I don't know what I thought. The odds of such a thing... I have to believe it happened for a reason." She raised her head and gave Elsa a weak smile. "Your Majesty, I'm glad _Daniel_ was the monster and not _you_. You both suffered so much, but you never made the mistakes Daniel did. You never let your suffering define you."

Elsa bowed her head, then said, almost to herself, "I came close..."

"When Emma's illness made her cold, I sometimes wondered if it wasn't related to Daniel... if his ice hadn't cursed my offspring. And when Emma's body became ice, at first I thought it was because of that... but... but when Adrian and I learned you caused the winter, we assumed you froze Emma, too. I'd never have imagined Daniel's magic could... could make him into that _thing_. I would have told you about Daniel sooner, but just the thought of him brought me so much pain, even after all these years..."

Elsa placed a hand on Olive's shoulder. "I understand. We don't blame you for hesitating."

"Hey, uh, Olive?" Anna spoke up, clearing her throat somewhat anxiously. "I really, really, _really_ don't want to give you false hope, but whatever happened to Emma's body after she froze? Because when Daniel brainwashed her, Elsa turned a whole bunch of people into ice-statues, and they're all fine now, so..."

Olive shook her head. "We buried the ice. Emma's melted into the ground by now."

"Besides, Daniel's magic froze her head, not mine," added Elsa. "I don't think there's anything I could've done for Emma."

Anna nodded solemnly. "Yeah, I guess you're right..."

* * *

After that, there hadn't been much else to say. There'd just been a bit of hugging and consoling, then the sisters had returned to their carriage. They'd spent the entire return trip in silence, letting Olive's revelation sink in. Elsa was ashamed to admit it, but deep down she was overjoyed to learn Emma's death had been Daniel's fault. It was like the weight of the world had suddenly lifted off her shoulders.

"Well, that was fun," Anna said dryly as the sisters strolled through the palace gates.

"The fun's not over yet," said Elsa. "We still need to visit the trolls."

Anna groaned. "Do we _have_ to? I'm tired."

Elsa let out an incredulous laugh. "Tired? _You?_ Who are you and what have you done with my sister?"

"Har har."

* * *

The ride to the valley on horseback gave Anna plenty of time to rest her eyes. The problem was, Anna didn't seem too keep on opening them again once they arrived.

"Elsa, I... I can't even begin to tell you how sorry I am..."

He'd apparently recovered enough strength to heal the worst of his wounds, but Grand Pabbie was still wrapped in bandages, struggling to support his own weight with his walking stick. He'd never looked so old.

"How are you holding together?" asked a concerned Kristoff.

"I'm as old as the earth," said Grand Pabbie. "I've survived worse. But..." He faltered. "...the true pain is... that I'll have to live with what I did."

"It's not your fault." Elsa knelt to place a hand on his shoulder. "Daniel threatened your loved ones, and you panicked. I know the feeling. I don't blame you for any of this."

"Thank you, Your Majesty. That means the world to me." With a great effort, Grand Pabbie managed to limp off towards his burrow. "Forgive me, but I need to rest. I'm just glad there was no true harm done..."

As soon as he was out of earshot, Kristoff let out a heavy sigh. "See, this right here's the exact reason the trolls don't announce themselves to the whole world. So long as he stays hidden, Grand Pabbie's magic can't hurt anyone."

"Yes, well... that advice doesn't always work out." Elsa turned away. "It's getting late. We'd better head home."

"Uh, actually, Your Majesty..." Suddenly, one of the older troll men rolled up to Elsa. Elsa couldn't actually tell the trolls apart in the slightest, but if she could, she'd have recognized him as Mr. Kidney Stone. "Could I speak with you for a minute?"

"What's wrong?" frowned Elsa.

"Well, it's about the wight's body. Me and some buddies were using it as a makeshift dart board, only with rocks instead of darts. It was surprisingly fun. Ten points if you hit him between the eyes, twenty if it's in the... Anyways, at some point after your winter thawed, it got warm enough that all that ice inside him started to melt, and, well, stoning him when he was already dead didn't seem humiliating enough, so I was trying to come up with something worse, and I'd just drunk a lot of water-"

"Is this going where I think it's going?" cut in Kristoff.

"But that's not important!" Mr. Kidney Stone hurriedly added. "The point is, before I could further humiliate the jerk – and I swear I'm not crazy here – his body _twitched!_"

_T__hat_ woke Anna up. "He twitched?" She gave Elsa a startled look. "Daniel was some kinda zombie, right? Oh my God, what if he's still alive? What if all you did when you pumped him full of ice was paralyze him?"

Elsa turned to the troll. "Where's Daniel's body now?"

"We freaked out and stuck it in the prison cave with some ice to stop his insides from melting, and we've got some guys guarding him. He hasn't moved again."

"Take us there."

* * *

The prison cave was in a cliffside just outside the valley. The entrance was guarded by a pair of boulders that, at Mr. Kidney Stone's signal, uncurled into trolls and moved out of the way

The cave was dank and musty, and it housed scattered chunks of ice, Brock the Mystical playing the harmonica in the far corner, and, unlike the wight's cave, a refreshing lack of bones. It did, however, house the wight himself. Daniel was sprawled out above some ice blocks. With his body so stiff and rigid, a look of terror on his face, and nothing on but his pajama pants, Daniel looked a lot less like a monster and a lot more like a poor little boy who'd frozen to death.

But somehow, Elsa was having trouble feeling sympathy for him.

"Looks like my paint faded off of him," muttered Mr. Kidney Stone.

The group hesitated by the entrance. Anna, naturally, was the first one brave enough to go near the body.

"You still alive, jerkface?" she asked, poking Daniel's glassy eyes with her fingers. "Not just playing possum again?" She gave him a nice, swift kick between the legs, which produced a loud cracking noise. Kristoff and Mr. Kidney Stone couldn't help but wince.

"He seems pretty dead to me," Anna shrugged.

The second the words left her mouth, Daniel's torso swung upwards.

There were shrieks from every last man, woman, troll, and reindeer in the cave, but before Daniel could near Anna, a blast of wind sent him flying backwards. Elsa promptly sent a bolt of magic into his mouth, causing Daniel's body to seize up once again. Fresh ice spread over the partially-melted layers around his nostrils, fingernails, and other orifices.

"I think you kicked the ice inside him loose!" said Elsa.

"Sorry! Sorry!" Anna jumped back, hiding behind her sister and boyfriend.

"Let's not do that again, shall we?" said Kristoff. "Guess that tears it – He's just paralyzed."

Elsa took a long, hard look at the frozen corpse. "Our cryomancy gives us the power to grant life," she said. "We can bring snowmen to life, and, according to Daniel, with that same power, we can animate our corpses. Daniel seemed to think that by killing me, I would turn into a wight like him." Her eyes met Daniel's. Despite the ice covering them, Elsa could almost feel the hatred oozing out.

"I'm guessing that's how he survived you sticking him full of icicles, too," said Anna. "He played dead, but he was actually all like, 'Oh look at that, I've been impaled.'"

"Okay, so why haven't you guys burned the body already?" asked Kristoff.

"We were scared to," said Mr. Kidney Stone. "With Grand Pabbie out of commission, we've pretty much got no clue how magic works. We thought it might be cursed or something."

"I don't think we should burn him yet," said Elsa. "Daniel still has Mother Winter's magic in him. He could be dangerous."

"Well, he's not using any magic right now, and all his snow-monsters went away," said Anna. "Maybe when you froze his insides, you gave him some kind of lobotomy? Y'know, turned him into a vegetable?"

Elsa looked thoughtful. "Maybe."

"So is there some way to get rid of all that magic, then?" asked Kristoff.

At this, Elsa and Anna traded glances.

A smile crossed Anna's face. "You thinking what I'm thinking?"

* * *

For the second time that day, Klaus answered the door to find the royal sisters on the welcome mat.

"You're back?" frowned Olive from behind him. "Is something the matter?"

"Err, you could say that," said Anna. "You might wanna be sitting down for this..." She gave a dramatic pause before saying. "Daniel's alive!"

Olive cried out in shock, stumbling backwards.

"But he's a vegetable!" added Anna. "Totally harmless!" She turned to Elsa. "Dang it, I just gave an old lady a heart attack for no reason, didn't I?"

* * *

The grim silence coupled with the Northern Lights overhead and the flames of the torches gave the hill an eerie atmosphere, like they were preparing a ritual sacrifice. They could have chosen to do this anywhere, of course, but the hill beneath the oak tree had felt like the appropriate place. They had surrounded Daniel's stiff body in a triangular formation, Anna and Kristoff at the sides, torches burning bright, and Elsa at the head, holding the blood red crystal sword in her hand. Olive stood off to the side, leaned against the trunk of the tree, and took in the spectacle silently.

"Keep your torches ready," Elsa instructed, holding out her free hand. "I'm going to thaw him."

All four of them caught their breaths as Elsa sent a little wave of magic towards Daniel's body. In the span of seconds, the ice at the orifices vanished, and the corpse lost its rigidness. They stood there for a moment, staring at it as it lay motionless in the grass.

Then Daniel sprang to his feet and lunged. He went for Anna first, but a wave of her torch sent him tumbling back, shrieking. Daniel waved an arm and sent out a blast of freezing wind, but before it could extinguish anything, a distortion erupted from the red sword. Brandr's third sword hadn't really worked properly after Olive's impassioned speech to the Arendelle villagers, but in this particular instance, Elsa had more than enough hatred to power it.

When he realized what Elsa had in her hand, Daniel dropped to the ground and curled into the fetal position, chest heaving wildly.

"What's wrong, Daniel?" said Elsa, stepping towards him. "Scared of a little heat?"

Elsa wasn't sure if Daniel still had a mind left in him or if, like Anna had said, Elsa's ice had lobotomized him, but she didn't wait to find out. The next instant, she gave the sword a mental command, and a wave of frost erupted from Daniel's fingertips, pouring into the blade like water into a bucket. Daniel screamed and struggled to halt the flood of magic, but the sword only glowed brighter, absorbing it faster and faster.

Like when Mary had done this to Elsa, Daniel was changing. But unlike then, he was doing much more than gaining color. His entire body twisted and contorted, his hair graying and his skin wrinkling. The boy was aging decades in the span of seconds.

Finally, the lights died down, and Daniel collapsed to the ground. He no longer looked like the frostbitten corpse of a young boy. Now he looked like an old man. An old man covered in blue splotches with bony black fingers, maybe, but still a _live_ old man. His greasy hair was a bit less white, a bit more gray, and his skin had maybe a touch more color to it. He wasn't a corpse anymore, but he didn't exactly look far from one.

The transformation had done nothing to slow Daniel's breathing. "My ice... You took my ice! _You took my ice!_"

Anna shot Elsa an anxious look. "Was that supposed to happen?"

Elsa shook her head. "I honestly had no idea _what_ would happen. It looks like it brought him back to life somehow."

Kristoff shifted towards Anna, keeping his torch close. "You mean he's not a wight anymore? How does that work?"

"I don't know..." Elsa stared at Daniel's new, elderly body thoughtfully. Maybe, she reasoned, when these swords absorbed a cryomancer's magic, they changed them into what they would've looked like without magic. In Elsa's case, the spitting image of her mother, and in Daniel's case, a frostbitten old man the same age as Olive.

"_You took my ice! You took my ice!_" Daniel's voice had grown even raspier than before. Just listening to it was enough to hurt Elsa's ears.

Elsa silenced him by holding the sword to his throat. "You failed, Daniel. You said we were the same, but all you did was prove the opposite. You used your suffering as an excuse to hurt people. You were everything I ever feared I'd become." She lowered the blade, then turned her back to him. "You made me think I'd killed a little girl. But my hands are clean – Not a single soul died during either of my winters."

For a moment, Daniel was silent. Then came the laughter. "You think that means you can act all high and mighty? You think that makes you better than me?" It came to an abrupt stop. "I was a murderer the day I was born. I never had a choice! Why should you have one? _Why should you have one?_"

"Kristoff, can you carry him?" asked Elsa, ignoring Daniel's screaming. "The guards are at the bottom of the hill – they can take him from there." Kristoff extinguished his torch and obediently stepped forward, prompting Daniel to hobble backwards in a feeble attempt to escape.

"So that's it, Elsa?" Daniel spat. "After everything I did, you're not even going to kill me? You were fine with killing me before. Who's going to judge you for it? What are you trying to prove?" Kristoff tried to grab his arms, but this only made Daniel struggle more, his screams growing louder. "Go ahead, Elsa! I know you want to!"

Elsa wordlessly walked away down the hill.

"Fine. _Fine_. I admit it! I lied to you!" Daniel yelled after her. "I just wanted things to be fair! Why do _you_ deserve a sibling who loves you? Why do _you_ deserve _parents?_" He let out a laugh. It wasn't mocking. He sounded genuinely amused. "But I could fix that, couldn't I? Yes, with my magic, I could do _anything_. I could kill anyone I wanted, my dear Elsa. It would've been _easy_." He chuckled to himself, then added, almost in a whisper, "As easy as stowing away below deck, waiting for them to set sail, and then sticking some icicles through the hull."

Elsa halted her march.

"Elsa, wait!" Anna's eyes were wide and trembling, her breath ragged. "That can't... can't be right..."

Elsa slowly, purposefully turned around, then marched straight for the old man. Kristoff instinctively dropped Daniel and took a few steps back out of harms way. Elsa paused inches from Daniel's face and stared him in the eye.

Daniel stared back, smiling.

Elsa raised a hand, frost fuming off it, and jabbed at Daniel's chest. Anna screamed, Daniel laughed, and the next instant he was tumbling backwards through the grass. Daniel landed face up, clutching his heart. But the humor had left his face.

"W-What did you-? It hurts," Daniel said faintly. "The cold... hurts..." A streak of white had crossed his gray hair. "I'm... still alive?"

"I froze your heart." Elsa's voice was as calm and steady as if she were addressing her council. "Just a little bit. You'll freeze slowly. From the inside-out."

Daniel's smile returned. "So you had it in you after all."

"No," said Elsa. "It's not a death sentence. The only way to thaw a frozen heart is with an act of true love. I don't know how much time you have left. Maybe months, maybe years. But if there is _anybody_ in this world who truly, genuinely _loves_ you, go to them. Thaw your heart, and you can live." She turned back around and walked towards Anna. "And if you're so bitter and hateful that you can't find a single person on this earth who loves you... well, then what was your life worth in the first place?"

Elsa, Anna, and Kristoff walked away, leaving the old man to flail about on the hill, his heartbeats growing colder and colder. It was at this point that Daniel finally spotted Olive standing directly across from him.

"O-Olive!" he got out. "You came back for me! I..." He let out an anxious laugh. "I knew I'd catch you again. I set the... bait... like fish-"

"Daniel," Olive spoke, voice trembling. "Why? Why my daughter?"

Daniel grew silent. It was the kind of question that had no answer.

After a minute, Olive turned away and walked off with the others, leaving Daniel alone beneath the oak tree.

* * *

As they neared the guards, Anna extinguished her torch and took Elsa's hand in her own. She tried to give Elsa a smile, but it proved surprisingly difficult.

"Hey, Elsa?" Anna brought her free hand to her eyes. "What Daniel said about sneaking below deck or whatever... It was all a lie. That's all Daniel is – a big, stupid liar. He'd have... He'd have said anything to get you to kill him..."

Unlike Anna, Elsa managed to overcome the difficulty. "It doesn't matter how they died," she said. "What matters is how they lived."

Anna took a glance back towards the hill. Olive was headed towards them, while Daniel was limping away in the opposite direction. "So are we just gonna let Daniel wander off, then? We're not gonna throw him in jail?"

Elsa shook her head. "He's a crippled old man with no magic now. He can barely even walk. I don't see what possible harm he could do anyone, even if he does thaw his heart." She held up he crimson sword. "That is, so long as he never gets his powers back."A torrent of erupted burst from her palms.

The blade instantly shattered into a million pieces. With the last of the antimagic gone, the water droplets turned to hail and mixed in with the shards, falling into the grass. From now on, Elsa's magic would stick to making ice like it was supposed to.

The rest of the group started to leave, but Anna lingered behind, staring at Daniel a while longer.

"Come on, Anna," Elsa said gently. "We'd better head home."

"One second."

Suddenly, Anna bolted across the hill straight towards Daniel, moving incredibly fast, even by the standards of a feisty-pants like herself.

Daniel glanced over at her. "Wha-?"

_Crack._

After that, Anna returned to Elsa's and Kristoff's side, patting her knuckles affectionately. "Had to be done. _Now_ we can go home."


	74. Knock-Knock, Knock, Knock-Knock

All of Arendelle was bright and sunny. No one would've guessed that a couple days ago, the country had been suffering its second horrible blizzard. Arendelle was, of course, far enough north that terrible snowstorms were to be expected. The citizens would just prefer it if said snowstorms stayed in the months from December to February where they belonged, that was all. A couple days ago, citizens were bundled up in as many layers of clothing as they could wear, huddled indoors by the fireplace and hoping their dwindling food supplies didn't run out. But now Arendelle's drought had returned with a vengeance, and citizens were forced to find the bare minimum amount of clothing they could wear to avoid expelling their entire body weight in sweat.

"Hoo hoo! Hi, family!" A large party of people entered the courtyard, several of whom looked strangely identical to one another. Oaken exchanged bear hugs with his cousin the vegetable-stand owner, his brother the bartender, and his sister the salamander-transmogrifier. Picture Oaken but with boobs and no facial hair. Well, _less_ facial hair, anyways.

A pair of guards watched the Oaken clan stroll through the gates. A minute passed in silence.

"That sauna guy is totally gay," said Henrik.

Morten groaned.

"I mean, have you seen his family? He lives with four kids and an older man!"

"That could be his eldest son or something," said Morten. "And, I mean, even if he _is_ gay, it's not like it's a big deal. Dude can do what he wants with his life."

"I'm just saying..."

"Well, can we talk about something else for once? You know, when you harp about gay people so much, it kinda makes you seem insecure."

"What?" Henrik let out a stilted laugh. "Don't be silly. I'm not the least bit insecure."

"Whatever you say."

Another minute passed.

"So," said Henrik, "wanna go get dinner together sometime?"

Morten gaped at him. "Are you _hitting on me__?_"

"But you just said I shouldn't be insecure!"

It was at this point that the conversation was interrupted, which was probably for the best.

"Psst! Hey, boys!" A man in a heavy overcoat approached them.

"What is it?" frowned Henrik.

"Wanna buy some... high-concept artwork?" The peddler opened his coat to give them a tempting glimpse of his wares.

Both guards turned bright red.

"Whoa!" said Morten. "Is that the queen and... and...?"

"Fits, that kid who bodyguards her," the peddler said proudly. "I mean, we all know what 'bodyguard' is code for. How many supple young boys do you think 'bodyguarded' Catherine the Great, am I right?"

"That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard!" scoffed Henrik.

Morten gave an approving nod. "For once we agree on something."

"It's spitting in the face of the overwhelming evidence that Queen Elsa is a lesbian!"

"_Oh, come on!_" Quite a few heads turned towards the sound of Morten screaming. "What's wrong with you people? Why can't the queen just stay single, huh? Her life seems fine _without _romance in it! And it's not like there aren't already a gazillion royal chicks out there who turn romance into their defining trait! Why can't Queen Elsa stay special? Why can't she be a _strong, independent person__?_"

Henrik and the peddler stared for a moment, watching Morten's chest heave up and down.

"Y'know, when you harp about romance so much, it kinda makes you seem insecure," said Henrik.

Morten bowed his head. "Dinner sounds nice," he admitted.

Of course, the Oaken clan wasn't the only one heading towards the palace. Countless villagers were flooding through the gates. There were blacksmiths, artisans, and even a diabetes-inducingly sweet couple – Charlotte, her belly more swollen than ever, sharing a smile with her husband. Ever since that ordeal with the changelings, the people of Arendelle had been holding onto their children a little bit tighter. All except one six year old boy, that is.

"You're making me wear this _again_?"

"The queen is giving another public address!"

"What, is she gonna apologize for sending us into _another_ eternal winter?"

* * *

"First off, you have my sincerest apologies for sending Arendelle into _another_ eternal winter."

Countless eyes were fixed on Elsa, but after the living nightmare the days under Daniel's spell had been, public speaking didn't seem quite as scary anymore. And it didn't hurt that Anna had opted to stand at Elsa's side right from the start this time. The sisters overlooked the crowd in the courtyard from the top of the icy staircase, which Elsa had once again created for the sake of looking impressive.

This crowd of villagers was a lot smaller than the one from the last public address, and most of them seemed pretty jumpy, like Elsa might turn them into ice cubes if they didn't applaud loudly enough. Elsa fought to keep the smile on her face. Somehow, in the span of a few weeks, things had gone full circle, and she was once again dealing with the aftermath of an eternal winter.

"I know not all of you will believe me..." Elsa took a deep breath before continuing. "...but this time, the eternal winter wasn't my fault. As most of you have hopefully heard already, a sorcerer used magic to alter my mind as a deliberate attack against Arendelle. He's dead now, so this can't happen again. We have his body if the courts need proof. When I made the eternal winter and brought an army of snowmen into the village, I wasn't in my right mind. I was just as much a victim as the rest of you. But I assure you, I have perfect control now. What I said in my last speech is still true: Fear is our enemy. And the opposite of fear is understanding. The way my parents dealt with magic was wrong. Magic shouldn't be covered up. Hiding from something only makes us afraid of it, and when we're afraid of something, we can never learn to understand it."

Elsa threw an arm into the air. A bolt of frosty magic shot into the sky. At first the crowd shrieked and pulled back, but, as the clouds above grew thicker and thicker, and the temperature grew colder and colder. Not _freezing_ cold. Just cold enough so crops wouldn't turn to steam the instant the seeds hit the dirt. All across Arendelle and even beyond to the neighboring countries touched by the winter, the brown grass was turning green and the barren trees were sprouting leaves.

"Looks like the drought's officially over." Anna grinned and gave her sister a pat on the shoulder. "See, that wasn't so hard, was it?"

This time, when she laughed, she had a feeling it actually _wasn't_ because of the magic-induced giddiness. Elsa had another five pages of speech left to give, but somehow, seeing the faces of citizens enjoying the cool air, Elsa knew just one last sentence would suffice:

"We _need_ magic."

* * *

As Elsa had promised her sister, the public address was followed by a ball. Actually, Elsa had only promised a small one, but that hadn't stopped Anna from inviting half of Arendelle and even some foreign dignitaries from the coronation. All in all, though, this ball went a lot more smoothly than the last one, though people were unfortunately reluctant to partner up with any snowmen for the dances. Cloud and Cottonball were forced to waltz with each other.

Really, the fact that citizens were even willing to be in the same room as Elsa's snowmen was a big step forward. Elsa couldn't blame people for being a bit scared of them. Between "Evilsa" turning the town into a snowmen-run police state and Olaf's brief-yet-eventful stint as "Official" Substitute Ice Master and Deliverer, public opinion of Elsa's snowmen wasn't as high as it could be. As it turned out, not everyone found Olaf's vacuous mental faculty endearing.

There was one person who seemed to enjoy being in the presence of a snowman, though – or rather, snowwoman. Elsa couldn't help but smile as she watched Fritz's valiant effort not to waltz on Mary's toes.

"I think I finally understand Fritz," Elsa said aloud. "After being neglected for so long, he needed someone in his life to love him, but it just wasn't healthy for him to fixate on me. I'm glad he moved on and found someone who can reciprocate his feelings."

"Yeah, but I bet Fritz wishes Mary looked more like Anna," said Olaf from beside her. "Fritz liked kissing Anna _a lot_." And with that, he walked away.

Elsa's air of queenly sophistication was seriously compromised.

"What are you doing just standing there?" Anna asked as she and Kristoff waltzed across the ballroom floor towards Elsa. "Where's your dance partner?"

"I told you, I don't dance," said Elsa, quickly composing herself.

"What? Don't be silly, Elsa!" said Olaf, lifting his head into view with his stick-arms. "You did a great dance when you were building your palace on the North Mountain."

Elsa blanched. "You saw that?"

"Yep! And I heard you singing, too. That was a great song!"

"Wow, I didn't know you could sing," said Anna, releasing Kristoff so she could draw nearer to Elsa. "Ooh, ooh, sing the song right now! I want to hear!"

Elsa shrank back, a tinge of red entering her cheeks. She happened to be incredibly good at singing and dancing when she was absolutely sure no one else was around. "Why don't we change the subject...?"

Anna brought her hands to her hips, smirking. "What could _possibly_ be a better subject than you singing and dancing?"

"How about that interesting little tidbit Olaf just told me about you and Fritz?"

Now it was Anna's turn to blanch.

"I'm gonna go get some fondue!" Kristoff hurriedly excused himself.

"Oh _dear_." Elsa's smirk widened. "Looks like I've struck gold."

Anna brought a palm to her forehead. "Okay, okay, I'll fess up. In my life, I've made two absolutely horrible mistakes I spend my every waking moment regretting. One was almost marrying a stranger who turned out to be a murderous sociopath. The other was making out with Fritz."

Elsa's smirk became a full-on grin. "Oh, Anna, there's nothing to be ashamed of. I'm sure nobody thinks any less of you now that you've _made out with __Fritz__._"

Anna groaned.

"Better break up with Kristoff," said Elsa. "We both know who your _real _true love is."

"Very funny..."

* * *

Sven let out a pleasant snort and drew his nose closer to Fritz's outstretched palm, prompting Fritz to squeak in terror and yank it away.

"There's nothing to be afraid of, honey." Mary gave him a reassuring peck on the cheek. "Just think of him as a big dog with antlers."

"Hey! Sven's nothing like a dog!" said Kristoff as Sven scratched an ear with his hind hoof.

Fritz pressed himself tighter against his girlfriend. "But I'm scared of big dogs, too..."

"Aww, I think he's cute..." Mary gave Sven a good scratch between the antlers. "You're nothing but a harmless caribou. Yes you are!"

Both Kristoff and Sven scowled at her.

"He's a _reindeer_," said Kristoff icily. "There's a difference."

"Kristoff! Kristoff!" Suddenly, a certain feisty-pants sprinted across the courtyard towards them. "You've gotta come see that prince and princess we invited," said Anna, grabbing his arm. "They've got a _chameleon__!_"

"Alright, alright, I'm coming..."

* * *

Anders watched from across the courtyard as Anna and Kristoff scampered off while Fritz and Mary cuddled up together. His eyes narrowed. _Ugh, teenagers. _Was there anything more sickening than-?

"Hello," said a delicate voice from behind him.

Anders spun around. His breath caught in his throat.

Curly gray hair. Dazzling green eyes. A smile that pierced right through him.

"H-hello," Anders breathed.

"Elsa's told me a lot about you." The angel from heaven extended a hand. Anders gave it a feeble shake. "I'm Olive. Olive Dale."

"I- I- err, I, err, I'm An... An..."

"Anders?"

"Yes, that's it!"

Olive giggled. It was the most wonderful sound he'd ever heard.

"Well, it's nice to meet you, Anders."

* * *

"Shh! Come on, Fritz."

Mary's grip on Fritz's arm tightened as she led him down the secluded castle hallways. There'd been a time in his life where Fritz thought about Elsa every seven seconds, but now whenever he tried to picture pure gorgeousness personified, all that would pop into his head was Mary's face. At this point, just looking at her made Fritz's lips a bit numb.

"Everyone's still at the ball." Mary put on a sly smile. "We have the whole castle to ourselves." She wrapped her arms around Fritz, leaning them against a nearby tapestry. "No one is watching, Fritz," said Mary. "Elsa's not here. She'll never have to know what we were up to..."

Fritz's heart beat faster. He may have been more than a little ignorant on the intricacies of romance, but he at least understood enough to know what they were about to do. This was... this was a dream come true. The one thing Fritz had wanted more than anything ever since he first realized he liked girls. Fritz was about to become a man!

Mary leaned in to whisper in his ear. "_We could do anything we want.._."

Fritz's face drew closer to hers, his heart beating so fast he thought it might explode Yes... Yes! It was happening! It was really happening!

Fritz slowly opened his mouth... and started singing a romantic duet.

"_All my life I've been belittled and told no one cared,_

_Even the littlest bitty bit 'bout me._"

"Oh, you just wanted to sing?" said a disarmed Mary. "Alright...

_I was just this broken thing, abandoned and scared._

_I never thought I'd have a boyfriend,_

_Or a real family_."

"_You and me_-"

"_You and me-_"

"_I know yoooou caaaare-_"

"-_and I'm not scared._"

"_And we see the worth we couldn't see befooooore..._"

* * *

Music wafted down towards the courtyard, prompting Elsa to lift her head towards a building poking over the horizon.

"Anna, look, Fritz and Mary are dancing on the clock tower. Aww, that's cute." Elsa smiled and listened to the faint sounds of singing:

"_Our mental synchronization_,

"_Can have but one explanation..._"

But to Elsa's surprise, Anna scowled. "Let's get out of here," she said, scrunching up her nose.

"What's the matter?" frowned Elsa.

"I hate this song."

* * *

It didn't take Olaf long to notice that his bestest friend in the whole world had wandered off from the ball. The little snowman found his pal out on the snow-covered palace garden, sitting beneath a tree with a woman who looked right around his age.

"Hey, you're both old people!" Olaf blurted out. "That means you can kiss each other without it being gross!"

"Yes, thank you, Olaf." Anders cupped a hand around his ear. "I think I heard Marshmallow calling for you. You'd better go see what he wants."

"Well, I didn't hear anything, but I trust you implicitly." Olaf scampered off.

"He's a real character, isn't he?" chuckled Olive.

Anders nodded slowly. "Elsa and Anna built him when they were little. The coming to life part didn't happen until later, though. I suppose that's for the best – a talking snowman would've been a bit harder to hide from the world – but..." He squeezed his eyes shut. "...I wish he'd gotten to meet their parents."

"He reminds me of a child," said Olive.

"I've always thought, even when he was just a make-believe snowman, that Elsa based him on her sister," said Anders. "You know, back when Anna was younger and denser. It's like... like I get to babysit her all over again..."

For a moment, he grew silent. Then Anders said, "Elsa's told me about you, too. I'm sorry for your loss."

Olive turned away, hiding her face.

"I had a little brother once." Anders opened his eyes, then brought a hand to them. "He could've given Anna a run for her money, and I guess I was always the Elsa of the pair. But... I was even younger than Elsa was the day she froze Anna's head... when the pox got him." He put on a wry smile. "But I'm obscenely old, so that was an eternity ago."

Silence.

"It never stops hurting, does it?" said Olive.

Anders sighed, his eyes watching Olaf grow smaller and smaller on the horizon. "Not particularly, no. But it wasn't just that. Elsa's father... he was practically a second brother to me. And then one day he took in some girl off the streets, and they squeezed out a pair of princesses, and... I don't know what I thought. That I had a second chance, maybe."

He let out a bittersweet laugh.

"And then Elsa had to go and have magical powers, and the whole world turned upside down. I could tell – could see it coming a mile away – that the way Elsa and Anna were raised... the lies, the isolation, all that garbage... was going to hurt them, but their parents didn't know what else to do, and... in the end, all I did was complain... give them a hard time... never actually tried reach out to either of the girls... just let them spend three years alone and friendless..."

Anders's eyes might have started watering if he hadn't suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder.

"It's not your fault," said Olive.

Oh, what the heck, they started watering anyways.

* * *

She was the winter, and winter meant death, and mortals would always fear death. Women and children shrieked as the ice crept across the cobblestone, twisting into jagged icicles as it neared them.

"_You hurt me. You locked me away. Never again. Never a-_"

"Elsa!"

Elsa was awoken by someone shaking her shoulders. Her eyes shot open to find Anna leaning over the bedside, her face lit by moonlight.

"You were starting to toss and turn there," said Anna.

"Anna?" Elsa said groggily. "What are you doing here?"

"I've been checking on you during the night." Anna gave a patient smile. "I'm paranoid, I know."

Elsa could feel the color entering her cheeks. "You don't need to worry about me."

Anna gave her an uncharacteristically stern look. "I'm your sister. Worrying about you is my job."

"You're my _little_ sister." Elsa sat up out of her covers to meet Anna's eyes. "_I_ should be taking care of _you_."

"We take care of _each other_."

"I know. I just..." Elsa broke her gaze. "I'm sick of feeling fragile."

"_Elsa_." Anna placed a hand on her arm. "Something really, really, _really_ bad happened to you. You can't just make yourself not be upset."

"I know. I know. But I... I..." It came out all at once. Maybe it was just because it was late and she was exhausted, but Elsa found herself sobbing into Anna's shoulder like a little girl. "_I h-hate feeling like this..._"

For a good long while, there was nothing in the room but one sister crying and the other stroking her hair and whispering soft, soothing words.

"Y'know what you need?" Finally, Anna released Elsa and made for the door. "Some hot chocolate. You've earned it."

Anna stepped out the newly-repaired door to get the attention of a passing servant. As soon as she'd flagged down a maid to request the chocolate. Anna returned to the bedroom.

Her hand lingered a bit on the newly-repaired frame. "I see you, uh, finally replaced the door."

"Sorry," Elsa said softly, wiping her eyes. "I know you liked the door being gone, but it didn't exactly give me much privacy."

"Yeah, yeah, I understand." Anna tried to sound neutral, but the disappointment still leaked through her voice.

Elsa sighed. "It doesn't matter, anyways. This won't be my bedroom for much longer."

"What do you mean?" frowned Anna.

Elsa stared at her blankets. "I'm... I'm moving back to my old bedroom in the morning. I just thought... I'll never get over the past by burying it."

Anna gave a faint smile. "Whatever you think is best."

"And that's not all," added Elsa. "I'm getting rid of the castle's ice-decorations, too. Most of them, anyways. The ice-tower is pretty, but keeping it from melting is a pain." She got a far off look in her eye. "Maintaining the temperature in here... It's- It's like this little prickle in the back of my head all the time. Way too annoying. And besides, we really ought to finish repairing the fire damage."

"Yeah, not to mention that Brandr-shaped crater you left in the courtyard..."

It was at this point that the maid returned to hand the girls some steaming mugs of cocoa. Elsa sipped her chocolate wordlessly. She hadn't given it long enough to cool down, but she barely even flinched.

"_Kree kree!_" A little ball of snow with legs poked itself out from behind Elsa's pillow.

"Oh, Snowball, I was wondering where you'd run off to." Snowball hopped into Anna's hands and gave her an affectionate nuzzle.

Suddenly, Elsa shifted under her covers. Then her eyes fell on something in the corner of the room: a circular platform of ice with nothing on it. Elsa rose out of bed.

"What's wrong?" frowned Anna.

"There's something I forgot to do."

"_Elsa_, you can do more work in the morning! If you stay up any later, your brain's gonna drip out your ears."

"It's not work." Elsa stopped in front of the empty platform. With a wave of her hand, she summoned a sizable pile of snow onto it. "We never rebuilt our snowwoman."

"Oh yeah." Anna hopped out of her dresser chair and ran over to her sister. "Fourth time's the charm, I guess..."

"We'll keep it in here even after I change bedrooms tomorrow," said Elsa. "This room can be like Emma's memorial."

The sisters were pretty good at building Emma the snowwoman by now, so it only took a couple seconds. It was just as they put on the handprints that Anna said, "Y'know, we've been a little too busy to think about it, but I'm really _really _glad Daniel killed Emma." She caught herself, then hurriedly added, "I mean, I'm glad it was him instead of you! I mean, if Emma _had_ to die, I'd rather it be on purpose by some evil jerk than on accident by... uh..."

"I understand," Elsa said softly.

For a second, Elsa and Anna stared at the completed snowwoman in silence. Then Elsa sat up and returned to her bed.

"I'd better get to sleep," she said. "I'm about to pass out any second now."

"Good night, Elsa," Anna said, returning to her chair.

Elsa frowned at her. "I can get a maid to watch me. You don't have to-"

"I _want_ to," cut in Anna. "I mean, I could stare at you all night, really."

Elsa raised an eyebrow.

"Not in a weird way," smirked Anna. "I'm just really, really, super, humongously happy that you're back to being you, that's all."

This time, Elsa _did _manage to laugh at that word. She leaned in to give her sister a big hug and a kiss on the forehead before tucking herself under the covers.

"I love you, Anna."

"And I love you, too, _of course_."

But then Anna caught sight of Elsa's face. "Elsa? What's wrong?"

Elsa rolled over beneath the sheets. "I... I'm starting to remember more and more," she admitted. "I tried to kill Daniel. He wasn't a mindless monster. He was a person once. A person just like me. But he..." She had to stop to collect herself before she could finish. "...he ripped open my head and rewrote my mind. And so I tried to kill him... _horribly_... and then _smiled_ about it..."

"Elsa, that-"

"D-Don't you see? Daniel was right. Death. That's what I'm _for_. If you hadn't stopped me, I would've murdered every last person in Aren-"

The sobbing was cut off by Anna giving Elsa's shoulders another shake. "Elsa, listen to me." Anna looked her sister right in the eye and said with a completely straight face, "You can't blame yourself for the stuff Evilsa did."

Elsa wasn't exactly in the mindset to laugh, so instead she made a strangled, "What?"

"Evilsa," Anna repeated, dead serious. "The crazy girl with the icicle crown and the trashy dress who terrorized everyone. The one who made the second eternal winter and could fly and- Wait, actually, can you fly when you're _not _evil?"

"I'm not insane enough to find out," Elsa said flatly. "I don't think I was flying so much as flinging myself around on the wind. I'm lucky I didn't break every bone in my body..."

"Well, my point is, Evilsa gets her own name because she _wasn't you_. You were buried somewhere deep down in her head, but she wasn't the real you. She was this rotten thing Daniel made because he hated the world so much."

Anna brought a palm to Elsa's forehead. "Ever since you froze my head, everyone's been super scared of you hurting people with your powers, but that was a freak accident. Who else have you ever hurt? A cat? A couple plants and animals? You froze a whole country_ twice_, and you never killed a single person either time. What are the odds of that?" Anna glanced over at the snowwoman. "Even Emma turned out to have already had her head frozen by Daniel. Heck, even when you were Evilsa, the worst you did was turn people into ice-statues."

Elsa let out a bitter laugh. "What are you saying? That I'm harmless? I'm pretty sure I could stick an icicle through you if I felt like it."

"Yeah, but you _don't_ feel like it," said Anna. "What I'm saying is, maybe your magic just _won't_kill people. Maybe it's so naturally in-synch with your emotions that it'll never do it. Don't you get it? You ended the drought. You brought a bunch of plants back from the dead. Heck, you can bring snowmen to life! Your purpose isn't death – It's the total opposite."

Elsa took this in for a moment. "What about Daniel?" she asked quietly. "I put an icicle through him. I froze his insides."

"You weren't yourself those times," said Anna. "Mary and Daniel were screwing with your head. What really counts is how you dealt with Daniel when you were in your right mind. Nobody would've blamed you if you'd killed the little jerk, but instead you just froze his heart."

Elsa failed to meet her gaze. "Even that's practically a death sentence for him."

"He'll thaw it." Anna's voice held total confidence. "Everybody's got _someone_ who loves them."

Elsa smiled for about the ten billionth time since the day she'd watched an ice-statue return to being her sister. She leaned forward like she was sharing a secret, then whispered, "Yes, but not everyone's lucky enough to have an Anna..."

* * *

Cold. The sun beating down on his back, and he was cold. Daniel took another arduous step forward. Hungry. Not the hunger of being a wight – the slow ache of magic fading from his being – but regular, mortal hunger. It was a dimly familiar feeling, like a distant memory. Daniel shut his eyes, but he could no longer feel the ice lingering beneath his fingertips.

Everything ached. His nose ached from where his worst enemy had broken it. His heart ached from each pulse growing just the tiniest bit colder. And his feet ached from walking when his joints barely worked and every slight movement brought him agony. With a great effort, Daniel turned his head around.

He'd made it maybe ten feet from the oak tree.

Daniel allowed himself to collapse onto the grass. Elsa... His dear Elsa... He wasn't sure how she'd gotten her memories back, but he knew who the culprit was. His worst enemy. Her sister. She had won. Elsa was _hers_. Daniel had even admitted he was the liar, which he'd _never _admitted before, not even to the voices in his head. But the voices were gone now. _Everything_ was gone.

"Daniel."

The old man managed to raise his head, his eyes searching for the sound of the voice. There was a... a _shape_ standing before him, but Daniel's vision was so blurry now...

Had his vision been sharper, he'd have recognized the figure as a white-haired old man, much like himself.

"You're a hard man to find," said Admiral Klaus. "First I hear you're dead, then I hear you're alive, then I hear you're dead again..."

Daniel stayed silent.

Klaus knelt down, meeting his eyes, and outstretched a hand. "Daniel, I... I've been looking for you. I've been looking for you ever since..." Klaus's face was usually the picture of stoicism. But not today. "It's my fault, Daniel. It's all my fault. Can you forgive me?"

More silence. Then, a set of bony fingers that were not quite as black anymore lifted themselves into the air and, shaking, managed to intertwine themselves with Klaus's.

Klaus pulled him into a hug. "Let's go home."

"Hey, Eric." Daniel laughed. For once, he didn't sound genuinely amused. "You'll never guess what I've been up to."

**The End**

* * *

**_Author's Note_****: If you just can't get enough of my writing, I've got two other fanfics that spin-off of this one. One is ****_Anatomy of a Snowwoman_****, which is set after this one and focuses on Mary. The other is ****_Fritz: The Musical_****, which is set during this story and focuses on Fritz. ****And there may be more Frozen stories to come in the future, so keep an eye on my work. Thanks for reading.**


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